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DANIEL  WEBSTER 


ENGLISH  AND 
AMERICAN 
LITERATURE 


STUDIES    IN    LITERARY 
CRITICISM,  INTER- 
PRETATION AND 
H  I  S  TO  RY 


By  C.  H. Sylvester 

Formerly  Professor  of  Literature  and 

Pedagogy  in  the  State  Normal 

School  at  Stevens 

Point,  Wis. 


INCLUDING  COMPLETE 
MASTERPIECES 


IN  TEN  VOLUMES 

With  Numerous  Halftone  Illustrations 

VOLUME  THREE,   ORATIONS 

d83o 


CHICAGO 
BELLOWS    BROTHERS    COMPANY 

1906 


^y^   1907 


copyright,  j902 
By  bellows  brothers  company 

All  rights  reserved 


rK^i 

t 

S9g 
V.3 

^ 

part  five 

®ration0 


Contents 

Pagb 

Forms  of  Prose  Composition     .         .         .11 
Studies    ......  16 

Orations 

Discussion 19 

General  Directions  for  Study  .  29 
Biographical  Sketch  of  Daniel  Webster  35 
Reply  to  Hayne  —  Webster  .  .  '43 
Studies  on  the  Oration  .  .  138 
Biographical  Sketch  of  Edmund  Burke  .  147 
On  Conciliation  with  America — Burke  161 
Study  of  the  Oration  .  .  •265 
Supplementary  Readings  .  .  .  275 
Review  Questions 277 


1lllu0ttatton0 


Pagb 

Portrait  of  Daniel  Webster  .         .         Frontispiece 
"The  front  of  Jove  himself, 
An  eye   like  Mars  to  threaten  and 
command." 

Supreme   Court   Room   in   the  Capitol  at 
Washington.     Formerly  the    Senate 

Chamber 40 

It  was  in  this  room  that  Webster  de- 
livered his  reply  to  Hayne. 

Portrait  of  Robert  Young  Hayne  .         .         .68 
'<  A  skilful  debater,  a  master  of  caustic 
eloquence." 

The  National  Capitol  at  Washington     .         .     96 
The  east  front  as  it  now  appears. 

The  City  of  Washington        .         .         .         .122 
"The  city  of  magnificent  distances." 
A  view  down  Pennsylvania  avenue, 
from  a  recent  photograph. 

United  States  Senate  Chamber      .         .         .138 
As  it  appears  at  the  present  day. 


HUustrationa 

Pagb 
Houses  of  Parliament  .         .  144 

A  stately  pile  of  buildings  fronting 
on  the  Thames  river.  Near  by  are 
Westminster  Abbey  and  the  great 
Westminster  Bridge. 

Interior  of  the  House  of  Commons        .         .   190 
"A   rich   dark    room  instinct  with  a 
sofemn  grandeur,  bathed   in  an  at- 
mosphere of  weighty  deliberation." 

Westminster  Bridge       .         .         .         .         .    21S 
The  picture  shows  a  portion  of  the 
Houses    of   Parliament   and   at   the 
left  the  bridge  crossing  the  Thames. 

Thames  Embankment  .         .         .         .         .264 
"Earth    has   not    anything    to    show 
more  fair." 


jforme  of  Ipro^e  Composition 


jforms  ot  prose  Composftion 

It  seems  to  be  generally  accepted  that  four 
methods  of  expression  are  to  be  found  in  prose : 
Narration,  description,  exposition  and  argumenta- 
tion. Narration  deals  with  things  in  action,  de- 
scription with  the  appearance  of  things,  exposition 
explains  the  relations  ideas  bear  to  one  another, 
and  argumentation  not  only  does  this,  but  tries  at 
the  same  time  to  convince  its  readers.  Theo- 
retically, this  distinction  is  very  easy  to  make,  for 
action  is  the  life  of  narration,  appearance  the 
theme  of  description,  explanation  and  exposition 
are  synonymous,  and  no  one  argues  but  with  the 
hope  of  convincing.  What  can  man  do  more 
than  to  tell  what  has  been  done,  tell  how  a  thing 
looks,  show  how  one  thing  follows  from  another 
or  is  related  to  it,  and  endeavor  to  bring  another 
person  to  the  same  state  of  mind  ? 

The  accuracy  and  completeness  of  the  classifi- 
cation is  most  evident  until  one  attempts  to  apply 
it  practically  to  existing  literature,  and  then  he 
finds  that  no  literary  masterpiece  belongs  entirely 
to  any  one  of  the  classes,  but  that  these  mingle 
and  unite,  one  or  the  other  usually  predominating. 
This  ruling  element,  the  one  which  is  proportion- 
ately greater,  will  govern  the  classification  of  a 
selection.     In  any   story,  narration  and  descrip- 


iforms  ot  prose  Composition 

tion  meet  at  every  turn  and  not  infrequently  ex- 
position is  found  freely  intermingled,  while  novels 
have  been  written  with  the  avowed  sole  purpose 
of  changing  the  beliefs  of  a  people.  Uncle  Tonics 
Cabin  is  a  story  of  intense  dramatic  activity,  and 
abounds  in  vivid  descriptions  of  places  and  per- 
sons. It  is  generally  dealing  with  incidents  relating 
to  the  characters  of  the  story,  yet  it  really  makes 
an  exposition  of  the  evils  of  slavery,  and  certainly 
was  no  small  factor  in  stirring  the  American  peo- 
ple into  vigorous  action  against  the  slave  dealers. 
Yet  no  one  would  classify  the  book  otherwise  than 
among  the  narratives.  Although  into  Burke's 
Conciliation  other  elements  enter,  yet  everyone 
will  admit  it  to  be  argumentative  in  the  highest 
degree.  So  while  it  is  well  to  classify  the  selec- 
tions read,  yet  fine  theoretical  distinctions  should 
be  abandoned.  It  is  not  so  necessary  to  classify 
and  name,  as  it  is  to  compare  and  distinguish. 

The  selections  we  have  printed  illustrate  most 
excellently  the  four  methods  of  expression.  The 
Great  Stone  Face,  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  and  The 
Ambitious  .Guest  are  narratives,  as  pure  as  we 
can  select.  Few  are  finer  ideal  studies  into 
human  character  than  is  the  last  which  deals  so 
delicately  with  the  characteristics  of  the  different 
types  assembled  beneath  that  humble  roof.  The 
Cricket  on  the  Hearth  and  the  greater  part  of 
Lamb's  Dissertation  on  Roast  Pig  may  be  classed 
in   the   same  category.       The  Roger  de  Coverley 

12 


yorms  of  ©rose  Composition 

papers  are  descriptive,  Emerson's  Self-Reliance  is 
in  the  main  an  exposition,  while  the  great  speeches 
of  Webster  and  Burke  are  argumentative. 

Narratives  have  been  variously  classified  but  a 
classification  of  them  is  not  more  satisfactory  than 
of  other  forms  of  literature.  A  narrative  is  true 
or  fictitious,  and  there  appears  the  first  principle 
of  classification.  Truthful  narratives  are  personal 
when  they  are  the  simple  account  of  the  deeds  of 
some  person  or  thing,  biographical  when  they  show 
a  clear  and  evident  purpose  to  detail  the  events  in 
the  life  of  the  person,  historical  when  they  deal 
with  larger  and  more  complicated  questions  and 
when  the  actors  are  as  numerous  as  the  actions 
are  various.  Fictitious  narratives  comprise  short 
stories  and  novels.  Of  the  latter  there  are  many 
forms  as  has  been  explained  elsewhere.  One 
prominent  writer  notes  the  following  types:  (i) 
The  realistic  novel  that  is  true  to  actual  life  and 
often  enters  into  the  discussion  of  important  ques- 
tions of  record.  (2)  The  novel  of  life  and  man- 
ners which  is  largely  descriptive  and  in  which  the 
exigencies  of  the  plot  give  way  to  the  study  of 
customs.  (3)  The  novel  of  incident  in  which  the 
plot  is  everything  and  description  and  character 
study  are  avoided  or  subordinated  to  action.  (4) 
The  romance  which  deals  with  things  as  they  were 
in  days  long  past  and  with  actions  that  little  con- 
cern the  present.  Marvelous  and  even  supernatu- 
ral incidents  crowd  its  pages.     (5)  The  idealistic 

»3 


Jform  of  Utosc  Composftions 

novel  which  paints  the  world  as  it  should  be  and 
makes  its  actors  more  nearly  perfect  than  the 
world  accepts  as  typical.  (6)  The  novel  with  a 
purpose  which  seeks  to  convert  its  readers  by  the 
vividness  of  its  portraits  rather  than  by  argument, 
though  by  means  of  many  detailed  conversations 
its  theories  are  often  freely  discussed  and  fully 
substantiated. 

Description  deals  with  the  individual  and  not 
with  the  class.  A  fine  description  is  a  work  of  art 
in  its  highest  sense  and  is  closely  allied  to  painting, 
than  which  it  is  even  more  delicate  and  refined; 
for  while  the  painter  lays  his  color  on  the  canvas 
and  our  eyes  see  the  entire  picture  in  all  its  minut- 
est detail,  the  writer  can  only  suggest  the  idea  and 
stimulate  the  imagination  to  create  for  itself  the 
picture  in  the  mind  of  the  artist.  Yet  such  is  the 
marvelous  power  of  words  when  handled  by  a 
master  that  one  can  see  by  them  almost  as  vividly 
as  by  the  sense  of  sight.  The  reader  is  transported 
to  far-away  lands,  strange  men  and  animals  surround 
him,  the  skies  glare  above  him,  silver  lakes  sparkle 
in  the  sun,  brooks  murmur  against  their  fern- 
covered  sides,  and  birds  move  the  soul  with  their 
sweet  music.  Evening  draws  on,  and  the  land- 
scape glimmering  fades  away;  the  stars  come  out 
one  by  one  and  by  and  by  the  moon  steals  slowly 
up  the  sky.  Peace  and  quiet  reign  over  the 
darkened  world.  Neither  sculpture  nor  painting  can 
depict  these  changes;  it  rests  with   the  magic  of 

H 


jFotms  ot  iprose  Composition 

words.  But  the  reader  must  do  his  share.  ■  He 
must  give  time  to  his  reading,  must  yield  him- 
self gently  to  its  influence,  must  not  force  him- 
self into  the  writer's  mood  but  must  receive  and 
accept.  Then  descriptive  literature  will  yield  its 
keenest  pleasures. 

Exposition  on  the  other  hand  deals  with  the  class 
and  is  abstract.  For  this  very  reason  the  demands 
made  upon  its  reader  are  infinitely  greater.  It  is 
assumed  that  the  concrete  examples  and  specific 
instances  necessary  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
abstract  are  already  in  mind  and  that  the  barest 
allusion  to  them  will  be  sufficient.  So  exposition 
naturally  follows  narrative  and  description. 

Successful  argumentation  depends  upon  proof 
and  persuasion.  It  is  addressed  to  the  reason  or 
to  the  emotions.  Burke  and  Webster  endeavor  to 
establish  their  respective  positions  by  irrefutable 
arguments.  When  Beecher  addressed  the  people 
on  the  slavery  question  he  appealed  strongly  to 
their  emotions  and  sought  to  make  them  act  be- 
cause of  their  intense  feeling.  One  characteristic 
of  all  literary  masterpieces  is  unity,  but  in  none 
is  this  of  more  importance  than  in  the  expository 
and  argumentative  types. 


IS 


StuMcs 

1.  Find  three  descriptive  passages  in  The  Am- 
bitious  Guest;  three  in  Wee  Willie  Winkie. 
Which  story  contains  the  greater  number  of 
descriptive  passages  ? 

2.  Look  for  argumentative  passages  in  The 
Great  Stone  Face. 

3.  Look  for  expository  passages  in  the  narra- 
tives of  the  first  two  Parts. 

4.  Can  you  find  narrative  in  any  of  the  essays 
of  Parts  Three  and  Four  ? 

5.  Select  a  passage  from  Emerson's  Self- Reli- 
ance and  set  forth  in  logical  order  the  steps  in  his 
exposition. 


16 


Stut)^  of  an  ©ration 


©rations 

With  the  study  of  the  oration  we  enter  a  new 
department  of  literature.  The  essay  is  written  to 
be  read,  the  oration  to  be  heard ;  the  essay  is  to 
please,  to  entertain,  perhaps  to  instruct,  sometimes 
to  convince  ;  the  oration  is  to  arouse  the  feelings, 
to  carry  conviction,  to  stir  the  public  to  action. 
It  is  a  formal  production,  addressed  directly  to 
its  hearers  ;  it  is  in  form  or  meaning  in  the  sec- 
ond person.  Even  when  descriptive  or  eulogistic 
it  is  a  direct  address.  The  orator  says,  "These 
are  my  opinions  and  here  are  my  reasons  for  so 
thinking.  Will  you  not  accept  my  view  and  think 
and  act  accordingly  ?  " 

The  oration  naturally  divides  itself  into  three 
sections.  There  is  an  introduction  in  which  the 
speaker  clears  the  way,  opens  the  question  and 
lays  down  the  principles  he  proposes  to  advocate, 
or  indicates  the  course  of  his  argument.  The 
body  follows.  Here  the  principles  are  elucidated, 
the  arguments  advanced  and  properly  established, 
or  the  descriptions  elaborated  and  finished.  The 
last  section  is  the  conclusion  which  may  consist  of 
a  brief  review  or  summary  of  the  inferences 
drawn,  or  of  a  plea  for  belief  and  for  action  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of    the   speaker. 

19 


©rations 

As  a  final  part  of  the  conclusion  there  is  often  a 
paragraph  or  so  of  most  eloquent  diction,  the  per- 
oration. It  is  intended  to  appeal  particularly  to 
the  emotions  of  the  hearers,  to  carry  them  out  of 
themselves,  to  move  them  in  spite  of  themselves 
and  to  leave  them  feeling  intensely  the  earnestness 
and  sincerity  of  the  speaker. 

Before  the  art  of  printing  was  invented,  public 
opinion  was  molded  almost  entirely  by  public 
speaking,  and  for  a  great  many  years  afterward 
the  orator  was  the  greatest  of  leaders.  By  the 
magic  of  his  eloquence  he  changed  the  views  of 
men  and  inspired  them  to  deeds  of  greatest  valor. 
The  fiery  orations  of  a  Demosthenes,  of  a  Cicero; 
the  thrilling  words  of  a  Peter  the  Hermit  or  a 
Savonarola;  the  unanswerable  arguments  of  a 
Burke  or  a  Webster,  have  more  than  once  turned 
the  course  of  history. 

But  when  the  newspaper  first  found  its  way  into 
the  hands  of  thinking  men  the  power  of  the  orator 
felt  the  influence  of  its  silent  opponent  and  began 
to  wane.  To-day  it  is  not  often  that  multitudes 
are  swayed  by  a  single  voice.  The  debates  and 
stump-speeches  of  a  political  campaign  change 
but  few  votes.  The  preacher  no  longer  depends 
wholly  upon  the  convincing  power  of  his  rhetoric 
to  make  his  converts.  The  representatives  of  a 
people  in  a  parliament  or  a  congress  speak  that 
their  words  may  be  heard  through  the  newspapers 
6y  their  constituents  more  than  with  the  expecta- 

20 


©rations 

tion  that  their  speech  will  carry  a  measure  through 
the  House  they  are  addressing. 

Yet  we  still  listen  with  pleasure  to  a  fervid  speaker 
whose  earnestness  of  manner  carries  the  convic- 
tion of  his  sincerity,  and  even  against  our  will  we 
are  moved  by  elegant  sentences  and  pleasing 
tones.  The  orator  will  continue  to  be  a  power 
though  in  a  different  way.  Conditions,  have 
changed  and  the  ponderous  periods  and  elaborate 
figures  that  characterized  the  orators  of  classic 
epochs  are  giving  place  to  the  plain,  lucid  diction 
and  the  simple,  true-hearted  tones  of  the  modem 
speaker. 

Shakespeare  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Marc 
Antony  his  famous  oration  over  the  dead  body 
of  Csesar,  and  the  course  of  a  convincing  argu- 
ment was  never  more  clearly  seen  than  in  the 
actions  of  that  ignorant  body  of  Roman  citizens. 
Before  an  audience  of  nineteenth  century  laborers, 
fresh  from  the  perusal  of  their  daily  papers  in 
which  headlines,  skillfully  colored  reports,  and 
able  editorials  have  shaped  or  perverted  their 
opinions,  the  Roman  soldier  would  have  produced 
no  such  revolution  in  sentiment,  however  much 
the  people  might  have  admired  the  skillful  itera- 
tion of  his  "honorable  men"  or  the  masterly 
way  in  which  he  made  prominent  the  good  quali- 
ties of  his  martyred  chief. 

Everyone  admires  the  oration.  "I  come  to 
bury  Caesar,    not   to   praise  him."     There  is  no 

21 


Orations 

hint  of  iiis  r^,J  purpose.  How  readily  he  falls  in 
with  the  opinions  of  the  populace  loud  in  their 
approbation  of  the  acts  of  Brutus  and  his  co- 
conspirators !  With  what  ready  tongue  he  de- 
fends their  acts  and  praises  the  "honorable" 
intent  which  led  them  on  !  Then  little  by  little 
as  he  has  really  gained  the  "ears"  for  which  he 
asked,  with  what  delicate  skill  he  lets  his  auditors 
see  his  idea  of  the  real  character  of  Caesar,  till 
the  gaping  wounds  become  indeed  dumb  mouths 
to  plead  against  his  murderers.  When  the  time  is 
fully  ripe  he  brings  forth  the  will,  but  not  until 
the  people  wrought  to  the  highest  pitch  of  excite- 
ment and  as  furious  in  their  resentment  as  they 
had  been  loud  in  their  praise  demand  and  insist 
and  virtually  compel  him  to  reveal  its  contents. 
Then  his  conclusion  follows  with  irresistible  effect. 
True,  he  was  no  orator  as  Brutus  was,  but  a  plain 
man  who  had  sounded  the  depths  of  the  human 
heart  and  learned  the  secrets  of  its  action.  After 
all,  that  is  oratory,  and  oratory  of  the  most  ac- 
complished kind. 

The  true  oration  leads  through  the  hearing  to 
conviction  and  to  action.  So  the  canons  by  which 
one  judges  it  must  be  different  from  those  of  any 
other  form  of  literature.  The  greatest  speakers 
have  been  plain  men  —  many  of  them  were  not 
highly  educated,  and  some  of  them  might  be 
called  unlearned  even.  There  are  instances  in 
which   the   most    polished    oratory,    that    which 

22 


(Orations 

showed  most  conclusively  the  trained  intellect 
and  which  was  fashioned  with  all  the  art  that  the 
schools  can  give,  has  lost  its  power  and  is  re- 
membered only  by  the  scholars  who  still  point 
with  pride  to  its  literary  excellence.  But  the 
burning  thoughts  of  some  less  cultivated  man 
have  become  the  household  words  of  a  nation. 
The  heart  must  go  into  an  oration  if  it  is  to  reach 
an  audience. 

No  great  man  was  simpler  in  his  tastes,  plainer 
in  his  manner,  rougher  in  his  exterior,  than  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  Yet  as  a  public  speaker  he  has  had 
few  equals.  He  grew  up  in  the  west.  He  lis- 
tened to  campaign  speeches  and  read  whatever  he 
could  find.  His  clear  vision  pierced  to  the  core 
of  a  matter  and  he  saw  what  was  necessary  to 
make  a  convincing  argument.  To  master  these 
essentials  became  his  task  —  his  pleasure.  Sim- 
plicity, directness,  logic,  brevity,  he  sought  and 
obtained.  He  gathered  a  wealth  of  illustration, 
he  mastered  the  art  of  vivid  presentation,  he  mar- 
shaled his  facts  in  logical  array,  and  threw  his 
whole  soul  into  his  delivery.  With  this  equip- 
ment he  found  his  way  into  politics  and  entered 
his  memorable  series  of  debates  with  Stephen  A. 
Douglas. 

His  success  was  known  and  appreciated  in  the 

west  and  his  reputation  traveled  eastward.     With 

no  little  trepidation  in  his  own  heart  and    some 

fear  in  the  minds  of  his  warmest  supporters  he 

23 


Orations 

finally  stood  before  one  of  the  largest  and  most 
cultivated  audiences  the  city  of  New  York  could 
furnish,  and  again  his  convincing  oratory  made 
its  way.  The  self-trained  western  lawyer  out- 
shone the  most  brilliant  and  studied  orators  of 
the  great  metropolis. 

On  the  nineteenth  day  of  November,  1863,  a 
great  assembly  gathered  on  the  battlefield  of  Get- 
tysburg. It  was  a  day  of  solemn  dedication.  A 
beautiful  monument  had  been  erected  to  those 
who  but  four  months  before  had  given  up  their 
lives  to  save  the  north  from  further  invasion.  It 
was  an  important  occasion,  a  day  of  studied  cere- 
mony. Edward  Everett  was  the  orator  of  the 
day  and  had  prepared  himself  with  unwonted  care 
to  do  honor  to  the  dead.  His  oration  was  long, 
scholarly,  perfect  according  to  all  the  rules  of  his 
art.  It  was  one  of  his  greatest  efforts  and  his 
hearers  knew  they  had  listened  to  a  masterly  crea- 
tion. But  it  was  forgotten  when  they  heard  a 
simple  little  address  delivered  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  Abraham  Lincoln.  Here  is 
what  Lincoln  said  : 

Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  prop- 
osition that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we 
are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so 

24 


©rations 

dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a 
great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to 
dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting- 
place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But  in  a  larger 
sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate, 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men, 
living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  con- 
secrated it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or 
detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  re- 
member, what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget 
what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather 
to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which 
they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  ad- 
vanced. It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated 
to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us, —  that  from 
these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  meas- 
ure of  devotion, —  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain, —  that  this 
nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  free- 
dom,—  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 


25 


(Orations 

This  little  address  contains  but  ten  sentences, 
and  about  two  hundred  seventy-five  words.  But 
see  how  perfect  it  is  !  Analyze  the  thought,  sen- 
tence by  sentence,  and  see  what  perfect  unity 
characterizes  it.  It  is  difficult  to  make  the  sen- 
tences shorter  or  simpler,  but  a  tabulation  may 
help  to  the  meaning  at  a  single  glance.  The  fig- 
ures indicate  the  sentences  taken  in  their  natural 
order.  Read  the  outline  carefully  and  notice  that 
the  condensation  has  caused  the  omission  of  many 
minor  thoughts. 

I.  Introduction. 

1.  Spirit  of  the  nation. 

(a)  Conceived  in  liberty. 

(b)  Dedicated  to  equality. 

2.  Shall  such  a  nation  endure  ? 

The  war  will  determine. 

3.  Where  we  meet. 

A  great  battlefield. 

4.  Why  we  meet. 

To  dedicate. 

5.  A  fitting  meeting. 

II.  Body. 

6.  Impossible,  in  a  larger  sense,  to  dedicate. 

7.  Because  the  soldiers  dedicated  more  per- 

fectly. 

8.  World's  opinion  of: 

(a)  Our  words. 

(b)  The  soldiers'  deeds. 

26 


©rations 

III.  Conclusion. 

9-10.   Our  duty: 

(a)  To  be  dedicated. 

(b)  To  take  increased  devotion. 

(c)  To  resolve: 

(i)  That  their  deaths  shall  not  be  in 
vain. 

(2)  That    this    nation    shall     have 

greater  freedom. 

(3)  That   the   people's    government 

shall  not  perish. 

When  the  thought  has  been  mastered,  consider 
the  sentences  separately,  noticing  their  form  and 
the  words  that  compose  them.  Can  redundant 
words  be  found  ?  Can  different  words  or  phrases 
be  substituted  for  the  ones  given  here  without 
destroying  the  euphony  or  the  meaning  ?  Is 
there  anything  in  the  order  of  arrangement  of 
words  that  does  not  please  you  ?  In  the  sixth 
sentence  compare  in  meaning  the  words  dedicate, 
consecrate  and  hallow.  Which  is  the  strongest? 
Is  the  reason  given  sufficient  to  account  for  our  in- 
ability ?  The  eighth  sentence  is  a  noteworthy  one 
in  its  perfect  balance.  How  many  sets  of  words 
are  placed  in  opposition  ?  What  is  meant  by  the 
"last  full  measure  of  devotion"?  Is  the  expres- 
sion an  apt  and  beautiful  one  ?  What  is  the  dis- 
tinction in  meaning  among  the  three  phrases,  of 
the  people,    by   the  people,  and  for  the   people  ? 

27 


©rations 

Is  the  difference  in  meaning  sufficient  to  account 
for  their  use  ?  Does  the  similarity  in  form,  the 
apparent  repetition,  add  to  the  force  ?  Which  is 
the  best  sentence,  everything  considered?  Are 
the  sentences  arranged  in  order  of  climax,  the 
most  important  and  most  sonorous  last?  How 
do  the  various  sentences  compare  in  length  ? 

When  the  address  has  been  studied  by  this  out- 
line, and  the  questions  answered  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  reader,  it  will  begin  to  be  manifest  why  this 
is,  in  spite  of  its  brevity,  one  of  the  world's  great 
orations. 


28 


I 


General  Directions 


In  the  study  of  an  oration  the  student  should 
first  read  it  through  from  beginning  to  end.  Then 
he  should  determine  how  much  of  it  may  be 
considered  as  introductory,  what  part  of  it  is 
the  body,  and  where  the  conclusion  properly 
begins.  This  done  he  should  prepare  a  careful 
outline  of  the  thought  in  each  section.  In  the  in- 
troduction he  should  consider  the  purpose  of  that 
section  and  its  relation  to  the  body.  His  analy- 
sis of  the  body  of  the  discourse  should  show  the 
chief  line  of  thought  and  the  secondary  or  con- 
tributory lines.  He  should  weigh  the  arguments 
advanced  and  consider  for  himself  whether  these 
are  logical  and  convincing.  Then  he  should  take 
up  the  conclusion  to  judge  whether  it  follows 
naturally  and  logically  from  the  rest  of  the  ora- 
tion and  whether  it  is  convincingly  stated  and 
adds  to  the  force  of  the  argument.  If  it  is  a 
summary  of  facts,  is  it  a  true  one  and  are  the 
facts  put  in  an  effective  form  and  arrangement  so 
they  assist  in  making  the  desired  impression? 
The  student  here  as  elsewhere  in  this  course 
should  not  hesitate  to  write  the  results  of  his  own 
thinking  and  to  put  into  his  own  language  the 
thoughts  of  the  author.  Often  in  this  attempt  he 
convicts  himself  of  error  or  clarifies  the  meaning 
of  many  an  obscure  statement.  To  condense  into 
29 


(General  Directions 

as  brief  space  as  possible  the  thoughts  of  an  ora- 
tion is  excellent  practice.  In  doing  this,  note 
how  much  has  been  put  in  merely  for  the  sake  of 
sound.  All  the  illustrative  facts,  all  the  figures 
that  add  merely  to  the  beauty  or  the  convincing 
force  can  be  ruthlessly  set  aside  and  the  barest 
statement  of  facts  alone  preserved.  It  is  sometimes 
almost  startling  to  see  how  much  has  been  said  for 
effect  and  how  many  times  the  changes  have  been 
rung  on  the  same  idea.  As  the  speech  is  primarily 
to  be  heard,  much  care  has  been  given  by  the 
author  to  clothing  his  thoughts  in  euphonious 
words  and  to  arranging  them  in  effective  and  mel- 
odious order. 

In  an  oration  repetition,  which  in  other  forms 
of  literature  is  annoying,  may  become  a  merit.  For 
once  again  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  oration 
is  to  be  caught  by  ear  and  the  hearer  cannot 
ponder  over  everything  that  is  said  but  must 
hasten  on  to  other  ideas  as  rapidly  as  the  speaker 
utters  them.  Skillful  repetition  with  attractive 
variation  is  exceedingly  effective. 

The  personal  element  is  a  factor  of  great  im- 
portance. In  fiction,  in  the  essay,  and  in  most 
forms  of  poetry,  the  reader  is  often  left  in  doubt 
as  to  the  real  feeling,  the  sincere  belief  of  the 
writer.  But  in  the  oration  the  student  has  a 
right  to  assume  that  the  speaker  is  voicing  his  own 
sentiments,  is  advocating  the  principles  he  intends 
to  follow.  Often  the  orator  brings  his  own  per- 
30 


(Sencral  Directions 

sonality  into  the  foreground  and  here  the  student 
will  consider  the  purpose  indicated  by  such  a 
course  and  whether  by  so  doing  the  author  has 
made  himself  more  effective,  or  has  lessened  the 
force  of  his  arguments  by  the  very  prominence  he 
has  given  himself.  How  much  of  Webster's  reply 
to  Hayne  is  purely  personal  ?  What  justification 
has  Webster  for  making  himself  the  central  figure 
of  the  early  pages  of  his  debate  ?  Does  he  obtrude 
himself  into  the  argument  when  he  has  once  begun 
upon  the  main  question  ?  How  much  of  the  per- 
sonal element  appears  in  the  conclusion  ?  Would 
the  general  effect  of  the  speech  have  been  intensi- 
fied if  he  had  made  it  much  less  personal? 

Other  questions  will  occur  to  the  reader.  Does 
the  speaker  confine  himself  closely  to  his  argument, 
or  does  he  at  times  desist,  perhaps  introduce 
something  to  enliven  his  remarks,  to  catch  the 
wavering  attention  of  his  hearers  ?  Does  he  ever 
rise  above  the  special  instance  which  he  is  con- 
sidering and  utter  broad  and  general  truths  in 
startling  or  convincing  form?  Can  you  find 
single  sentences  which  may  be  taken  bodily  from 
the  text  and  be  in  themselves  complete  and  strik- 
ing statements  beautifully  expressed  ? 

Are  there  passages  of  unusual  eloquence,  and 
what  relation  do  they  bear  to  others  ?  Do  they 
follow  or  precede  the  arguments  and  proofs  ?  Do 
they  show  that  the  speaker  has  convinced  himself? 
Select  for  frequent  reading  a  number  of   the  pas- 

31 


©eneral  Dftections 

sages  that  you  admire  and  try  to  determine  what 
constitutes  their  charm. 

In  Webster's  speech,  where  does  the  peroration 
begin  ?  If  it  were  taken  from  the  oration  would 
it  be  considered  eloquent  and  thrilling  ?  Does 
it  depend  directly  upon  the  preceding  arguments, 
or  does  it  seem  like  a  patriotic  outburst  from  a 
heart  full  of  feeling  ?  Read  it  aloud.  Is  it  pleas- 
ing to  the  ear,  sonorous  and  rhythmical  ?  Are  all 
the  sentences  well  balanced  ?  As  you  read  do 
the  thoughts  flow  smoothly  and  join  readily  as 
though  one  followed  necessarily  from  another, 
and  do  they  increase  in  intensity  to  the  end  ? 
If  so,  this  peroration  is  a  climax  in  form  as  it  is 
the  climax  of  the  speech. 

As  elsewhere  in  the  course,  the  questions  we 
print  can  be  little  more  than  suggestive.  Wheiv 
one  studies  by  himself  he  must  cultivate  an  inquir- 
ing frame  of  mind,  he  must  learn  to  quiz  himself 
and  to  answer  his  questions  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  own  reason.  In  this  way  he  will  eventually 
gain  a  power  that  no  class  instruction  could  possi- 
bly give  him.  He  will  make  mistakes  and  form 
erroneous  judgments,  but  the  questioning  habit 
will  eventually  convict  him  of  his  errors  and  he 
will  revise  his  opinions  till  in  the  end  he  finds 
himself  more  firmly  established  in  right  views  than 
if  his  correct  ideas  had  been  at  first  established  by 
the  ablest  instructors.  Besides  he  will  have  an 
independence  of  mind  and  clearness  of  thought 
that  can  be  acquired  in  no  way  but  by  self-reliant 
thinking. 


S)antel  "CClebfiter 


Among  the  eminent  men  who  have  influenced 
legislative  assemblies  in  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  during  the  past  hundred  and 
twenty  years,  it  is  curious  that  only  two  have 
established  themselves  as  men  of  the  first  class  in 
English  and  American  literature.  These  two  men 
are  Edmund  Burke  and  Daniel  Webster. — E.  P. 
Whipple. 


Wmici  Webster 

As  a  patriotic  orator  Daniel  Webster  will  always 
stand  the  foremost  American.  Of  commanding 
presence,  with  a  courtesy  and  graciousness  of 
manner  that  never  failed  to  please,  he  secured  a 
loyal  following  wherever  he  went,  and  for  years 
was  the  greatest  power  in  American  politics  though 
he  was  never  able  to  secure  the  highest  office  his 
country  had  to  offer. 

His  education  was  acquired  under  the  most  ad- 
verse conditions.  His  parents  were  poor  and 
though  ambitious  for  their  son  were  able  to  assist 
him  but  little.  Moreover  he  was  delicate  and 
often  feeble  and  gave  little  promise  of  being  the 
large  and  powerful  man  he  became.  By  his  own 
exertions  and  the  practice  of  rigid  economy,  aided 
by  warm  personal  friends  and  the  loving  care  of 
his  parents,  he  gained  his  preparatory  education 
and  was  able  to  enter  Dartmouth  College  at  the 
age  of  fifteen.  While  at  Exeter  in  preparation 
for  college  he  found  his  greatest  trouble  in  his 
public  declamations.  "  Many  a  piece  did  I  com- 
mit to  memory,  and  recite  and  rehearse  in  my  own 
room,  over  and  over  again;  yet  when  the  day 
came,  when  the  school  collected  to  hear  declama- 
tions, when  my  name  was  called,  and  I  saw  all 
35 


Daniel  TOflebster 

eyes  turned  to  my  seat,  I  could  not  raise  myself 
from  it.  When  the  occasion  was  over  I  went 
home  and  wept  bitter  tears  of  mortification." 

After  leaving  Dartmouth  he  studied  law  and  in 
1805  was  admitted  to  the  bar.  He  rapidly  be- 
came prominent  in  his  profession  and  finally  set- 
tled at  Boston.  He  was  elected  to  Congress  and 
for  thirty-four  years  was  in  public  life  as  repre- 
sentative, as  senator,  and  twice  as  Secretary  of 
State. 

His  two  speeches  at  the  Bunker  Hill  Monu- 
ment, his  eulogy  on  Jefferson  and  Adams,  and  his 
speech  in  the  White  murder  trial,  together  with 
his  Reply  to  Hayne,  are  his  greatest  efforts  and 
are  worthy  their  reputation  among  the  finest  ex- 
amples of  classic  eloquence. 

Some  knowledge  of  the  circumstances  under 
which  his  Reply  to  Hayne  was  given  is  necessary 
to  an  appreciation  of  it. 

On  the  twenty-ninth  of  December,  1829,  Mr. 
Foote  of  Connecticut  introduced  the  apparently 
harmless  resolution  which  precipitated  the  great 
debate.  It  was  a  simple  inquiry  into  the  quantity 
of  public  lands  unsold  and  into  the  expediency  of 
abolishing  some  of  the  land  offices  and  of  limiting 
or  hastening  the  sales  of  such  lands.  The  south- 
em  members  claimed  to  see  in  this  resolution  some 
menace  to  their  rights  and  the  opportunity  was 
seized  to  make  a  bitter  personal  attack  upon  New 
England    men,    and    Mr.    Webster   in   particular. 

36 


2)anfel  Mcbstcc 

Webster  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  resolution  and  did  not  know  it  would 
be  made  the  occasion  for  such  a  debate.  It  is  • 
claimed  by  some  that  the  whole  attack  was  part  of 
a  formal  conspiracy  to  overthrow  Webster's  power 
and  influence  and  array  the  new  west  against  New 
England  and  its  leaders,  while  the  south  was  to  be 
considered  the  sympathetic  ally  of  the  west. 

The  debate  continued  with  occasional  interrup- 
tions for  four  months  and  engaged  the  greatest 
men  of  both  parties.  Benton  and  Hayne  were 
most  conspicuous  in  vituperative  brilliancy  and 
vehement  offensiveness.  Others  sided  with  them. 
President  Jackson  was  openly  and  consistently  op- 
posed to  Webster,  and  Vice-President  John  C. 
Calhoun,  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate,  was 
an  avowed  leader,  and  a  frequent  aid  to  Hayne  in 
his  last  brilliant  speech. 

It  was  on  Monday,  the  i8th  of  January,  that 
Benton  and  Hayne  made  their  first  violent  attack 
upon  New  England.  Though  their  bitterness  and 
virulency  surprised  Mr.  Webster  he  arose  to  re- 
ply but  yielded  to  an  adjournment  as  it  was  then 
a  late  hour.  The  next  day  he  replied  but  his 
speech  was  not  conclusive. 

On  Thursday  the  debate  was  resumed  by  Mr. 
Hayne.  Webster  was  engaged  in  an  important 
case  before  the  Supreme  Court  and  his  attendance 
there  seemed  necessary,  but  though  a  friend 
asked  an  adjournment,   to  enable  Webster  to  be 

37 


2)anlcl  Mebstcc 

present,  Hayne  would  not  consent.  He  said  he 
had  something  here  (placing  his  hand  on  his 
heart)  that  he  wished  to  get  rid  of.  Webster  had 
discharged  his  fire  in  the  face  of  the  Speaker 
and  Hayne  demanded  an  opportunity  to  return 
the  shot.  An  eye  witness  says:  '*Then  it  was 
that  Mr.  Webster's  person  seemed  to  become 
taller  and  bigger.  His  chest  expanded  and  his 
eyeballs  dilated.  Folding  his  arms  in  a  composed, 
firm  and  most  expressive  manner,  he  exclaimed  : 
'Let  the  discussion  proceed.  I  am  ready.  I  am 
ready  now  to  receive  the  gentleman's  fire.'" 

In  the  speech  that  followed,  Hayne  confident 
of  success  used  every  art  of  the  skillful  debater 
and  showed  himself  a  master  of  stinging  eloquence. 
What  he  said,  at  least  many  of  the  most  caustic 
remarks,  may  be  inferred  from  Webster's  reply 
but  the  effect  of  his  words  can  only  be  imagined. 
His  friends  crowded  around  him  and  were  as  con- 
fident of  victory  as  their  arrogant  leader. 

This  was  on  Thursday.  An  adjournment  fol- 
lowed and  it  was  the  Tuesday  following,  January 
26,  1830,  that  Webster  again  appeared  upon  the 
floor.  In  the  meantime  he  had  thought  much, 
and  hesitated  greatly  whether  it  were  best  to 
advance  freely  his  views  on  the  constitution,  views 
which  came  as  the  result  of  years  of  close  study 
and  deep  meditation.  But  his  friends  urged  him 
to  withhold  nothing,  to  crush  at  one  blow  the 
doctrine  of  a  state's  right  to  nullify  a  law  of  the 

38 


Daniel  Webster 

government,  for  to  this  point  had  the  debate  now 
swung.  Accordingly  when  the  hour  arrived,  the 
great  orator  was  fully  prepared  to  defend  himself 
and  his  New  England  friends  and  then  to  unfold 
this  most  masterly  exposition  of  the  relation  of 
the  constitution  to  the  states. 

At  the  capital,  interest  was  never  greater. 
Other  public  business  was  at  a  standstill;  the 
House  of  Representatives  was  deserted,  its  mem- 
bers crowding  into  the  Senate  which  was  full  to 
its  utmost,  long  before  the  speech  began.  The 
galleries,  the  floor,  the  aisles,  and  the  space  about 
the  President's  desk,  were  all  filled  with  expectant 
men.  Such  an  audience  has  rarely  met  a  speaker 
and  not  often  has  an  orator  held  an  audience  in 
such  spell-bound  attention.  Master  of  his  sub- 
ject and  master  of  his  hearers,  Webster  began. 
He  was  in  the  very  perfection  of  his  manhood, 
strong,  imposing,  self-reliant.  His  tremendous 
personal  vigor  and  his  dignified  poise,  his  stal- 
wart frame  and  massive  head,  his  fiery  eyes  glanc- 
ing beneath  their  overhanging  brows,  and  his  deep 
and  resonant  voice,  all  united  to  lend  force  and 
conviction  to  his  ponderous  rhetoric. 

Though  much  of  his  speech  is  argumentation, 
plain  and  unadorned,  yet  those  who  listened  never 
abated  their  thrilling  interest  till  the  orator  had 
ceased.  One  who  was  present  says:  "The 
speech  was  over,  but  the  tones  of  the  orator  still 
lingered  upon  the  ear,  and  the  audience,  uncon- 
39 


Daniel  TKUcbster 

scious  of  its  close,  retained  their  position.  The 
agitated  countenance,  the  heaving  breast,  the 
suffused  eye,  attested  the  continued  influence  of 
the  spell  upon  them.  Hands  that  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  moment  had  sought  each  other,  still 
remained  closed  in  unconscious  grasp.  Eye  still 
turned  to  eye,  to  receive  and  repay  mutual  sym- 
pathy, and  everywhere  around  seemed  forgetful- 
ness  of  all  but  the  orator's  presence  and  words." 


40 


IRepli^  to  Iba^ne 


DANIEL   WEBSTER 


IRepl^  to  Iba^ne 


In  the  U.  S.  Senate,  January  26,  i8jo. 

Mr.  President, —  When  the  mariner  has 
been  tossed  for  many  days  in  thick  weather 
and  on  an  unknown  sea,  he  naturally  avails 
himself  of  the  first  pause  in  the  storm,  the 
earliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take  his  latitude 
and  ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven 
him  from  his  true  course.  Let  us  imitate  this 
prudence,  and,  before  we  float  farther  on  the 
waves  of  this  debate,  refer  to  the  point  from 
which  we  departed,  that  we  may  at  least  be 
able  to  conjecture  where  we  now  are.  I  ask 
for  the  reading  of  the  resolution. 

The  secretary  read  the  resolution,  as 
follows  : 

''Resolved,  That  the  committee  on  public 
lands  be  instructed  to  inquire  and  report  the 
quantity  of  public  lands  remaining  unsold 
within  each  State  and  Territory,  and  whether 
it  be  expedient  to  limit  for  a  certain  period  the 
sales  of  the  public  lands  to  such  lands  only  as 


Note. —  Owing  to  the  great  length  of  this  speech  some  portions  have 
been  omitted,  but  enough  of  comment  is  made  in  their  places  to  preserve 
the  meaning  of  the  context. 

43 


IReplB  to  Ibagne 

have  heretofore  been  offered  for  sale,  and  are 
now  subject  to  entry  at  the  minimum  price. 
And,  also,  whether  the  office  of  surveyor- 
general,  and  some  of  the  land  offices,  may  not 
be  abolished  without  detriment  to  the  public 
interest ;  or  whether  it  be  expedient  to  adopt 
measures  to  hasten  the  sales  and  extend  more 
rapidly  the  surveys  of  the  public  lands. ' ' 

We  have  thus  heard,  sir,  what  the  resolu- 
tion is  which  is  actually  before  us  for  consid- 
eration ;  and  it  will  readily  occur  to  every  one 
that  it  is  almost  the  only  subject  about  which 
something  has  not  been  said  in  the  speech, 
running  through  two  days,  by  which  the  senate 
has  been  now  entertained  by  the  gentleman 
from  South  Carolina.  Every  topic  in  the 
wide  range  of  our  public  affairs,  whether  past 
or  present  —  everything,  general  or  local, 
whether  belonging  to  national  politics  or  party 
politics  —  seems  to  have  attracted  more  or  less 
of  the  honorable  member's  attention,  save 
only  the  resolution  before  the  senate.  He 
has  spoken  of  everything  but  the  public  lands  ; 
they  have  escaped  his  notice.  To  that  sub- 
ject, in  all  his  excursions,  he  has  not  paid 
even    the    cold    respect  of  a  passing  glance. 

When  this  debate,  sir,  was  to  be  resumed, 
on  Thursday  morning,  it  so  happened  that  it 
44 


IReplB  to  "fcagne 

would  have  been  convenient  for  me  to  be  else- 
where.^ The  honorable  member,  however, 
did  not  incline  to  put  off  the  discussion  to 
another  day.  He  had  a  shot,  he  said,  to 
return,  and  he  wished  to  discharge  it.  That 
shot,  sir,  which  it  was  kind  thus  to  inform  us 
was  coming,  that  we  might  stand  out  of  the 
way,  or  prepare  ourselves  to  fall  before  it  and 
die  with  decency,  has  now  been  received. 
Under  all  advantages,  and  with  expectation 
awakened  by  the  tone  which  preceded  it,  it 
has  been  discharged,  and  has  spent  its  force. 
It  may  become  me  to  say  no  more  of  its 
effect,  than  that,  if  nobody  is  found,  after  all, 
either  killed  or  wounded  by  it,  it  is  not  the 
first  time,  in  the  history  of  human  affairs,  that 
the  vigor  and  success  of  the  war  have  not 
quite  come  up  to  the  lofty  and  sounding  phrase 
of  the  manifesto. 

The  gentleman,  sir,  in  declining  to  postpone 
the  debate,  told  the  senate,  with  the  emphasis 
of  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  that  there  was 
something  rankling  here,  which  he  wished  to 
relieve. 


I.  Mr.  Webster  was  one  of  the  attorneys  in  an  important  case  known 
as  Carriers'  Lessees  against  yohn  Jacob  Astor,  then  on  trial  before  the 
supreme  court. 

4$ 


TRepIis  to  Ibaisnc 

[Mr.  Hayne  rose  and  disclaimed  the  use  of  thi 
word  rankling.'\ 

It  would  not,  sir,  be  safe  for  the  honorable 
member  to  appeal  to  those  around  him,  upon 
the  question  whether  he  did  in  fact  make  use 
of  that  word.  But  he  may  have  been  uncon- 
scious of  it.  At  any  rate,  it  is  enough  that  he 
disclaims  it.  But  still,  with  or  without  the  use 
of  that  particular  word,  he  had  yet  something 
here,  he  said,  of  which  he  wished  to  rid  him- 
self by  an  immediate  reply.  In  this  respect, 
sir,  I  have  a  great  advantage  over  the  honor- 
able gentleman.  There  is  nothing  here,  sir, 
which  gives  me  the  slightest  uneasiness;  neither 
fear,  nor  anger,  nor  that  which  is  sometimes 
more  troublesome  than  either,  the  conscious- 
ness of  having  been  in  the  wrong.  There  is 
nothing  either  originating  here,  or  now  received 
here,  by  the  gentleman's  shot.  Nothing  origi- 
nating here,  for  I  had  not  the  slightest  feeling 
of  disrespect  or  unkindness  toward  the  honor- 
able member.  Some  passages,^  it  is  true,  had 
occurred  since  our  acquaintance  in  this  body, 
which  I  could  have  wished  might  have  been 


2.  The  Panama  Congress  was  called  by  the  Republic  of  South 
America  in  1826.  President  Adams,  Webster  and  some  others  were 
strongly  in  favor  of  the  meeting,  and  delegates  were  sent  by  the  United 
States.  Webster  called  on  the  President  for  instructions  to  these  ministers. 
Hayne  vigorously  opposed  the  entire  movement. 
46 


1Rcpli5  to  Ibagne 

otherwise;  but  I  had  used  philosophy  and  for- 
gotten them.  When  the  honorable  member 
rose  in  his  first  speech,  I  paid  him  the  respect 
of  attentive  listening;  and  when  he  sat  down, 
though  surprised,  and  I  must  say  even  aston- 
ished, at  some  of  his  opinions,  nothing  was 
farther  from  my  intention  than  to  commence 
any  personal  warfare.  And  through  the  whole 
of  the  few  remarks  I  made  in  answer,  I 
avoided,  studiously  and  carefully,  everything 
which  I  thought  possible  to  be  construed  into 
disrespect.  And,  sir,  while  there  is  thus 
nothing  originating  here  which  I  wished  at 
any  time,  or  now  wish,  to  discharge,  I  must 
repeat  also,  that  nothing  has  been  received 
here  which  rankles,  or  in  any  way  gives  me 
annoyance.  I  will  not  accuse  the  honorable 
member  of  violating  the  rules  of  civilized  war; 
I  will  not  say  that  he  poisoned  his  arrows. 
But  whether  his  shafts  were,  or  were  not, 
dipped  in  that  which  would  have  caused  rank- 
ling if  they  had  reached,  there  was  not,  as  it 
happened,  quite  strength  enough  in  the  bow 
to  bring  them  to  their  mark.  If  he  wishes 
now  to  gather  up  those  shafts  he  must  look 
for  them  elsewhere;  they  will  not  be  found 
fixed  and  quivering  in  the  object  at  which 
they  were  aimed. 

47 


1RepIi2  to  "fca^ne 

The  honorable  member  complained  that  I 
had  slept  on  his  speech.  I  must  have  slept 
on  it,  or  not  slept  at  all.  The  moment  the 
honorable  member  sat  down,  his  friend  from 
Missouri^  rose,  and,  with  much  honeyed  com- 
mendation of  the  speech,  suggested  that  the 
impressions  which  it  had  produced  were  too 
charming  and  delightful  to  be  disturbed  by 
other  sentiments  or  other  sounds,  and  pro- 
posed that  the  senate  should  adjourn.  Would 
it  have  been  quite  amiable  in  me,  sir,  to  inter- 
rupt this  excellent  good  feeling .''  Must  I  not 
have  been  absolutely  malicious,  if  I  could  have 
thrust  myself  forward,  to  destroy  sensations 
thus  pleasing .''  Was  it  not  much  better  and 
kinder,  both  to  sleep  upon  them  myself,  and 
to  allow  others  also  the  pleasure  of  sleeping 
upon  them  ?  But  if  it  be  meant,  by  sleeping 
upon  his  speech,  that  I  took  time  to  prepare 
a  reply  to  it,  it  is  quite  a  mistake.  Owing  to 
other  engagements,  I  could  not  employ  even 
the  interval  between  the  adjournment  of  the 
senate  and  its  meeting  the  next  morning,  in 
attention  to  the  subject  of  this  debate.  Nev- 
ertheless, sir,  the  mere  matter  of  fact  is  un- 
doubtedly true.     I  did   sleep  on    the   gentle- 


3.  Hon.  Thomas  H.  Benton. 

48 


IRcplB  to  Ibasnc 

man's  speech,  and  slept  soundly.  And  I  slept 
equally  well  on  his  speech  of  yesterday,  to 
which  I  am  now  replying.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  in  this  respect,  also,  I  possess  some 
advantage  over  the  honorable  member,  at- 
tributable, doubtless,  to  a  cooler  tempera- 
ment on  my  part;  for,  in  truth,  I  slept  upon 
his   speeches   remarkably  well. 

But  the  gentleman  inquires  why  he  was 
made  the  object  of  such  a  reply.  Why  was 
he  singled  out  t  If  an  attack  has  been  made 
on  the  east,  he,  he  assures  us,  did  not  begin  it; 
it  was  made  by  the  gentleman  from  Missouri. 
Sir,  I  answered  the  gentleman's  speech  be- 
cause I  happened  to  hear  it;  and  because, 
also,  I  chose  to  give  an  answer  to  that 
speech,  which,  if  unanswered,  I  thought  most 
likely  to  produce  injurious  impressions.  I  did 
not  stop  to  inquire  who  was  the  original 
drawer  of  the  bill.  I  found  a  responsible 
indorser  before  me,  and  it  was  my  purpose  to 
hold  him  Uable,  and  to  bring  him  to  his  just 
responsibility  without  delay.  But,  sir,  this 
mterrogatory  of  the  honorable  member  was 
only  introductory  to  another.  He  proceeded 
to  ask  me  whether  I  had  turned  upon  him,  in 
this  debate,  from  the  consciousness  that  1 
49 


IRcplB  to  Ibasne 

should  find  an  overmatch,  if  I  ventured  on  a 
contest  with  his  friend  from  Missouri.*  If, 
sir,  the  honorable  member,  ex  gratia  modes- 
tics,^  had  chosen  thus  to  defer  to  his  friend, 
and  to  pay  him  a  compliment,  without  inten- 
tional disparagement  to  others,  it  would  have 
been  quite  according  to  the  friendly  courtesies 
of  debate,  and  not  at  all  ungrateful  to  my  own 
feelings.  I  am  not  one  of  those,  sir,  who 
esteem  any  tribute  of  regard,  whether  light 
and  occasional,  or  more  serious  and  delib- 
erate, which  may  be  bestowed  on  others,  as 
so  much  unjustly  withholden  from  themselves. 
But  the  tone  and  manner  of  the  gentleman's 
question  forbid  me  thus  to  interpret  it.  I 
am  not  at  liberty  to  consider  it  as  nothing 
more  than  a  civility  to  his  friend.  It  had  an 
air  of  taunt  and  disparagement,  something  of 
the  loftiness  of  asserted  superiority,  which 
does  not  allow  me  to  pass  it  over  without 
notice.  It  was  put  as  a  question  for  me  to 
answer,  and  so  put  as  if  it  were  difficult  for 
me  to  answer,  whether  I  deemed  the  member 
from    Missouri   an    overmatch   for  myself  in 


4.  During  the  course  of  the  debate  upon  Foote's  resolutions,  Mr.  Hayne 
and  Mr.  Benton  had  condemned  the  policy  of  the  eastern  states  as  being 
illiberal  to  the  west.  Mr.  Webster  replied  in  vindication  of  New  Eng- 
land and  the  policy  of  the  government. 

5.  From  modest  grace. 

50 


•Repls  to  "bn^nc 

debate  here.  It  seems  to  me,  sir,  that  this  is 
extraordinary  language,  and  an  extraordinary 
tone  for  the  discussions  of  this  body. 

Matches  and  overmatches  !  Those  terms 
are  more  appHcable  elsewhere  than  here,  and 
fitter  for  other  assemblies  than  this.  Sir,  the 
gentleman  seems  to  forget  where  and  what 
we  are.  This  is  a  senate,  a  senate  of  equals, 
of  men  of  individual  honor  and  personal  char- 
acter, and  of  absolute  independence.  We 
know  no  masters,  we  acknowledge  no  dicta- 
tors. This  is  a  hall  for  mutual  consultation 
and  discussion;  not  an  arena  for  the  exhibition 
of  champions.  I  offer  myself,  sir,  as  a  match 
for  no  man  ;  I  throw  the  challenge  of  debate 
at  no  man's  feet.  But  then,  sir,  since  the 
honorable  member  has  put  the  question  in  a 
manner  that  calls  for  an  answer,  I  will  give 
him  an  answer  ;  and  I  tell  him,  that,  holding 
myself  to  be  the  humblest  of  the  members 
here,  I  yet  know  nothing  in  the  arm  of  his 
friend  from  Missouri,  either  alone  or  when 
aided  by  the  arm  of  /its  friend  from  South 
Carolina,  that  need  deter  even  me  from 
espousing  whatever  opinions  I  may  choose  to 
espouse,  from  debating  whenever  I  may 
choose  to  debate,  or  from  speaking  whatever 
I  may  see  fit  to  say,  on  the  floor  of  the  senate, 
51 


IReplg  to  Ibasne 

But,  sir,  the  coalition  !  ®  The  coalition  ! 
Ay,  "  the  murdered  coalition  !  "  The  gentle- 
man asks,  if  I  were  led  or  frighted  into  this 
debate  by  the  specter  of  the  coalition.  • '  Was 
it  the  ghost  of  the  murdered  coalition,"  he 
exclaims,  "which  haunted  the  member  from 
Massachusetts,  and  which,  like  the  ghost  of 
Banquo,''  would  never  down?"  "The  mur- 
dered coalition  !  "  Sir,  this  charge  of  a  coa- 
lition, in  reference  to  the  late  administration, 
is  not  original  with  the  honorable  member. 
It  did  not  spring  up  in  the  senate.  Whether 
as  a  fact,  as  an  argument,  or  as  an  embel- 
lishment, it  is  all  borrowed.  He  adopts  it, 
indeed,  from  a  very  low  origin,  and  a  still 
lower  present  condition.  It  is  one  of  the 
thousand  calumnies  with  which  the  press 
teemed  during  an  excited  political  canvass. 
It  was  a  charge,  of  which  there  was  not 
only  no  proof  or  probability,  but  which  was 


6.  The  coalition.  There  were  four  candidates  at  the  presidential 
election  in  1824.  As  no  candidate  received  a  majority  of  the  electoral 
votes,  the  election  went  to  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  friends 
of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Henry  Clay  united  and  elected  Adams.  The 
Jacksonian  party  accused  Clay  of  forming  a  coalition  with  Adams,  and 
selling  out  to  him,  on  condition  that  Clay  should  be  made  secretary  of 
state.  Clay  was  appointed  to  this  position,  and  the  belief  that  such  a 
bargain  had  been  made  was  quite  current  for  some  years.  A  complete  un- 
derstanding of  the  situation  later,  however,  entirely  disproved  the  charge. 

7.  Banquo,  murdered  by  Macbeth.  The  allusion  is  to  the  ghost  that 
appeared  at  thft  banquet  in  Shakespeare's  play.    See  Part  Twelve. 

52 


TReplB  to  l)asnc 

in  itself  wholly  impossible  to  be  true.  No 
man  of  common  information  ever  believed  a 
syllable  of  it.  Yet  it  was  of  that  class  of 
falsehoods  which,  by  continued  repetition, 
through  all  the  organs  of  detraction  and 
abuse,  are  capable  of  misleading  those  who 
are  already  far  misled,  and  of  further  fanning 
passion  already  kindling  into  flame.  Doubt- 
less it  served  in  its  day,  and  in  greater  or  less 
degree  the  end  designed  by  it.  Having  done 
that,  it  has  sunk  into  the  general  mass  of 
stale  and  loathed  calumnies.  It  is  the  very 
cast-off  slough  of  a  polluted  and  shameless 
press.  Incapable  of  further  mischief,  it  lies 
in  the  sewer,  lifeless  and  despised.  It  is  not 
now,  sir,  in  the  power  of  the  honorable  mem- 
ber to  give  it  dignity  and  decency,  by  attempt- 
ing to  elevate  it,  and  to  introduce  it  into  the 
senate.  He  can  not  change  it  from  what  it 
is,  an  object  of  general  disgust  and  scorn. 
On  the  contrary,  the  contact,  if  he  choose  to 
touch  it,  is  more  likely  to  drag  him  down, 
down,    to  the   place  where  it  lies  itself. 

But,  sir,  the  honorable  member  was  not, 
for  other  reasons,  entirely  happy  in  his  allu- 
sion to  the  story  of  Banquo's  murder  and 
Banquo's  ghost.  It  was  not,  I  think,  the 
friends,  but  the  enemies  of  the  murdered 
53 


TRepls  to  l&asnc 

Banquo,  at  whose  bidding  his  spirit  would  not 
dozv7i.  The  honorable  gentleman  is  fresh  in 
his  reading  of  the  English  classics,  and  can 
put  me  right  if  I  am  wrong  ;  but,  according  to 
my  poor  recollection,  it  was  at  those  who  had 
begun  with  caresses  and  ended  with  foul  and 
treacherous  murder  that  the  gory  locks  were 
shaken.  The  ghost  of  Banquo,  like  that  of 
Hamlet,^  was  an  honest  ghost.  It  disturbed 
no  innocent  man.  It  knew  where  its  appear- 
ance would  strike  terror,  and  who  would  cry 
out,  A  ghost !  It  made  itself  visible  in  the 
right  quarter,  and  compelled  the  guilty  and 
the  conscience-smitten,  and  none  others,  to 
start,   with, 

' '  Prythee,  see  there  !  behold  !  —  look  ;  lo  ! 
If  I  stand  here,  I  saw  him  !  " 

Their  eyeballs  were  seared  (was  it  not  so, 
sir.-*)  who  had  thought  to  shield  themselves 
by  concealing  their  own  hand,  and  laying  the 
imputation  of  the  crime  on  a  low  and  hireling 
agency  in  wickedness ;  who  had  vainly  at- 
tempted to  stifle  the  workings  of  their  own 
coward    consciences   by    ejaculating    through 


8.  The  ghost  of  the  king,  Hamlet's  father,  that  came  to  tell  his  son 
how  he  had  been  murdered. 

54 


IReplB  to  f)aBnc 

white  lips  and  chattering  teeth,  *  *  Thou  canst 
not  say  I  did  it !  "  I  have  misread  the  great 
poet  if  those  who  had  no  way  partaken  in  the 
deed  of  the  death  either  found  that  they  were, 
or  feared  that  they  should  be,  pushed  from 
their  stools  by  the  ghost  of  the  slain,  or  ex- 
claimed to  a  specter  created  by  their  own 
fears  and  their  own  remorse,  *  *  Avaunt !  and 
quit  our  sight !  " 

There  is  another  particular,  sir,  in  which 
the  honorable  member's  quick  perception  of 
resemblances  might,  I  should  think,  have 
seen  something  in  the  story  of  Banquo  mak- 
ing it  not  altogether  a  subject  of  the  most 
pleasant  contemplation.  Those  who  mur- 
dered Banquo,  what  did  they  win  by  it  ? 
Substantial  good  ?  Permanent  power  ?  Or 
disappointment,  rather,  and  sore  mortifi- 
cation ;  dust  and  ashes  the  common  fate  of 
vaulting  ambition  overleaping  itself  ?  Did  not 
even-handed  justice  ere  long  commend  the 
poisoned  chalice  to  their  own  lips  ?  Did  they 
not  soon  find  that  for  another  they  had 
"'filed  their  mind?"  that  their  ambition, 
though  apparently  for  the  moment  successful, 
had  but  put  a  barren  scepter  in  their  grasp  ? 
Ay,  sir, 

55 


■RcplB  to  Iba^nc 

"a  barren  scepter  in  their  gripe 

Thence  to  be  wrencJied  by  an  unlineal  hand, 
No  S071  of  theirs  succeedi?ig.''^^ 

Sir,  I  need  pursue  the  allusion  no  farther. 
I  leave  the  honorable  gentleman  to  run  it  out 
at  his  leisure,  and  to  derive  from  it  all  the 
gratification  it  is  calculated  to  administer.  If 
he  finds  himself  pleased  with  the  associations, 
and  prepared  to  be  quite  satisfied,  though  the 
parallel  should  be  entirely  completed,  I  had 
almost  said,  I  am  satisfied  also ;  but  that  I 
shall  think  of.  Yes,  sir,  I  will  think  of 
that.   .   .   . 

I  spoke,  sir,  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
vv'hich  prohibited  slavery,  in  all  future  times, 
northwest  of  the  Ohio,  as  a  measure  of  great 
vasdom  and  foresight,  and  one  which  had 
been  attended  with  highly  beneficial  and  per- 
manent consequences.  I  supposed  that,  on 
this  point,  no  two  gentlemen  in  the  senate 
could  entertain  different  opinions.  But  the 
simple  expression  of  this  sentiment  has  led  the 
gentleman,  not  only  into  a  labored  defense  of 


9.  This  is  a  sarcastic  reference  to  Calhoun's  future  prospects.  Cal- 
houn was  anxious  to  secure  the  next  election  to  the  presidency,  but  his 
relations  to  President  Jackson  were  such  that  it  was  evident  that  Van 
Buren  would  be  the  choice  of  the  party. 

56 


TRcplB  to  Ijasne 

slavery,  in  the  abstract  and  on  principle,  but 
also  into  a  warm  accusation  against   me,   as 
having     attacked     the     system    of    domestic 
slavery  now  existing  in  the  southern  states. 
For  all  this  there  was  not  the  slightest  founda- 
tion in  anything  said  or  intimated  by  me.     I 
did  not  utter  a  single  word  which  any  ingenu- 
ity could  torture  into  an  attack  on  the  slavery 
of  the  south.      I  said,  only,  that  it  was  highly 
wise  and  useful,   in  legislating  for  the  north- 
w  estern  country  while  it  was  yet  a  wilderness, 
to   prohibit  the  introduction    of    slaves;   and 
added,    that   I   presumed   there   was   in   the 
neighboring  state  of  Kentucky  no  reflecting 
and  intelligent  gentleman  who  would   doubt 
that,    if  the  same  prohibition  had    been    ex- 
tended at  the  same  early  period,    over  that 
commonwealth,   her  strength  and  population 
would,  at  this  day,  have  been  far  greater  than 
they  are.     If  these  opinions  be  thought  doubt- 
ful,  they   are   nevertheless,    I   trust,    neither 
extraordinary  nor  disrespectful.     They  attack 
nobody  and  menace  nobody.     And  yet,   sir, 
the  gentleman's  optics  have  discovered,   even 
in  the  mere  expresssion  of  this  sentiment,  what 
he  calls  the  very  spirit  of  the   Missouri,  ques- 
tion.    He  represents  me  as  making  an  onset 
on  the  whole  south,   and  manifesting  a  spirit 
57 


"ReplB  to  "bn^ne 

which  would  interfere  with  and  disturb  their 
domestic  condition  ! 

Sir,  this  injustice  no  otherwise  surprises  me, 
than  as  it  is  committed  here,  and  committed 
without  the  shghtest  pretense  of  ground  for  it. 
I  say  it  only  surprises  me  as  being  done  here; 
for  I  know  full  well,  that  it  is  and  has  been, 
the  settled  policy  of  some  persons  in  the 
south,  for  years,  to  represent  the  people  of 
the  north  as  disposed  to  interfere  with  them 
in  their  own  exclusive  and  peculiar  concerns. 
This  is  a  delicate  and  sensitive  point  in 
southern  feeling;  and  of  late  years  it  has  al- 
ways been  touched,  and  generally  with  effect, 
whenever  the  object  has  been  to  unite  the 
whole  south  against  northern  men  or  northern 
measures.  This  feeling,  always  carefully  kept 
alive,  and  maintained  at  too  intense  a  heat  to 
admit  discrimination  or  reflection,  is  a  lever 
of  great  power  in  our  political  machine.  It 
moves  vast  bodies,  and  gives  to  them  one  and 
the  same  direction.  But  it  is  without  any 
adequate  cause,  and  the  suspicion  which  exists 
is  wholly  groundless.  There  is  not,  and  never 
has  been,  a  disposition  in  the  north  to  inter- 
fere with  these  interests  of  the  south.  Such 
interference  has  never  been  supposed  to  be 
within  the  power  of  government;  nor  has  it 
58 


■RcplB  to  tJaBttc 

been  in  any  way  attempted.  The  slavery  of 
the  south  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  mat- 
ter of  domestic  policy,  left  with  the  states 
themselves,  and  with  which  the  federal  govern- 
ment had  nothing  to  do.  Certainly,  sir,  I  am, 
and  ever  have  been,  of  that  opinion.  The 
gentleman,  indeed,  argues  that  slavery,  in  the 
abstract,  is  no  evil.  Most  assuredly  I  need 
not  say  I  differ  with  him,  altogether  and  most 
widely,  on  that  point.  I  regard  domestic 
slavery  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  evils,  both 
moral  and  political.  But  though  it  be  a 
malady,  and  whether  it  be  curable,  and  if  so, 
by  what  means;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  whether 
it  be  the  vulnus  imniedicabile^^  of  the  social 
system,  I  leave  it  to  those  whose  right  and 
duty  it  is  to  inquire  and  to  decide.  And 
this  I  believe,  sir,  is,  and  uniformly  has 
been,  the  sentiment  of  the  north. 

(Several  pages  are  here  omitted.  In  them, 
Webster  looks  a  little  into  history.  He  reviews 
the  relation  of  slavery  to  the  constitution  and 
shows  that  congress  had  passed  resolutions  deny- 
ing the  right  of  that  body  to  interfere  in  the  treat- 
ment of  slaves  in  any  of  the  states,  and  this  by  a 
congress  composed  largely  of  northern  men.      He 


lo.  Incurable  wound. 

59 


IReplB  to  Ibaigne 

recognizes  the  advantages  of  representation  to  be 
with  the  south,  but  does  not  complain.  He  favors 
the  constitution  as  it  is  and  the  Union  as  it  is,  but 
he  resents  the  imputation  that  he  is  seeking  to  ex- 
tend the  power  of  the  government  over  the  in- 
ternal laws  of  the  states.  He  discusses  the  Ordi- 
nance of  1787,  and  shows  that  it  was  due  to  the 
influence  and  votes  of  northern  men  that  slavery 
was  prohibited  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  and 
that  free  schools  were  secured  there.) 

But  as  to  the  Hartford  convention,"  sir,  allow 
me  to  say,  that  the  proceedings  of  that  body 
seem  now  to  be  less  read  and  studied  in  New 
England  than  farther  south.  They  appear  to 
be  looked  to,  not  in  New  England,  but  else- 
where, for  the  purpose  of  seeing  how  far  they 
may  serve  as  a  precedent.  But  they  will  not 
answer  the  purpose,  they  are  quite  too  tame. 
The  latitude  in  which  they  originated  was  too 
cold.  Other  conventions,  of  more  recent 
existence,  have  gone  a  whole  bar's  length 
beyond  it.     The  learned  doctors  of  Colleton 


11.  The  Hartford  convention  met  at  Hartford,  Conn.,  Dec  15,  1814.  It 
was  composed  of  delegates  from  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode 
Island,  and  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  opposition  of  the  Federalists  to  the 
war.  Its  sessions  were  behind  closed  doors,  and  a  report  was  falsely  cir- 
culated that  it  proposed  measures  leading  to  the  secession  of  the  New 
England  states  from  the  Union.  The  proceedings  brought  discredit  upon 
the  Federalists  of  New  England. 

60 


IRepis  to  Iba^ne 

and  Abbeville  ^'^  have  pushed  their  commenta- 
ries on  the  Hartford  collect  so  far,  that  the 
original  text-writers  are  thrown  entirely  into 
the  shade.  I  have  nothing  to  do,  sir,  with  the 
Hartford  convention.  Its  journal,  which  the 
gentleman  has  quoted,  I  never  read.  So  far 
as  the  honorable  member  may  discover  in  its 
proceedings  a  spirit  in  any  degree  resembling 
that  which  was  avowed  and  justified  in  those 
other  conventions  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
or  so  far  as  those  proceedings  can  be  shown 
to  be  disloyal  to  the  constitution,  or  tending  to 
disunion,  so  far  I  shall  be  as  ready  as  any  one 
to  bestow,  on  them  reprehension  and  censure. 
Having  dwelt  long  on  this  convention,  and 
other  occurrences  of  that  day,  in  the  hope, 
probably,  (which  will  not  be  gratified,)  that 
I  should  leave  the  course  of  this  debate  to 
follow  him  at  length  in  those  excursions,  the 
honorable  member  returned,  and  attenapted 
another  object.  He  referred  to  a  speech  of 
mine  in  the  other  house,  the  same  which  I 
had  'occasion  to  allude  to  myself,  the  other 
day;  and  has  quoted  a  passage  or  two  from  it. 


12.  Hayne  was  born  in  the  Colleton  district,  and  Calhoun  in  the  Abbe- 
ville district  of  South  Carolina.  Anti-tariff  meetings  had  been  held  in 
bof'\  districts  in  1828,  and  the  reference  is  probably  to  them. 

61 


TRcplg  to  Iba^ne 

with  a  bold,  though  uneasy  and  laboring  air  of 
confidence,  as  if  he  had  detected  in  me  an 
inconsistency.  Judging  from  the  gentleman's 
manner,  a  stranger  to  the  course  of  the  debate 
and  to  the  point  in  discussion  would  have 
imagined,  from  so  triumphant  a  tone,  that  the 
honorable  member  was  about  to  overwhelm 
me  with  a  manifest  contradiction.  Any  one 
who  heard  him,  and  who  had  not  heard  what 
I  had,  in  fact,  previously  said,  must  have 
thought  me  routed  and  discomfited,  as  the 
gentleman  had  promised.  Sir,  a  breath  blows 
all  this  triumph  away.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  difference  in  the  sentiments  of  my 
remarks  on  the  two  occasions.  What  I  said 
here  on  Wednesday  is  in  exact  accordance 
with  the  opinion  expressed  by  me  in  the  other 
house  in  1825.  Though  the  gentleman  had 
the  metaphysics  of  Hudibras,^^  though  he 
were   able 

"  to  sever  and  divide 
A  hair  'twixt  north  and  northwest  side," 

he  yet  could  not  insert  his  metaphysical  scis- 
sors between  the  fair  reading  of  my  remarks  in 
1825  and  what  I  said  here  last  week.     There 


13.  In  Butler's  satire  a  Presbyterian  justice  of  the  peace  who  sets  out 
to  reform  abuses,  to  suppress  games  and  amusements. 

62 


IReplg  to  Ibasne 

Is  not  only  no  contradiction,  no  difference, 
but,  in  truth,  too  exact  a  similarity,  both  in 
thought  and  language,  to  be  entirely  in  just 
taste.  I  had  myself  quoted  the  same  speech; 
had  recurred  to  it,  and  spoke  with  it  open 
before  me;  and  much  of  what  I  said  was  little 
more  than  a  repetition  from  it. 


I  need  not  repeat  at  large  the  general 
topics  of  the  honorable  gentleman's  speech. 
When  he  said  yesterday  that  he  did  not  attack 
the  eastern  states,  he  certainly  must  have 
forgotten,  not  only  particular  remarks,  but 
the  whole  drift  and  tenor  of  his  speech;  unless 
he  means  by  not  attacking,  that  he  did  not 
commence  hostilities,  but  that  another  had 
preceded  him  in  the  attack.  He,  in  the  first 
place,  disapproved  of  the  whole  course  of  the 
government,  for  forty  years,  in  regard  to  its 
disposition  of  the  public  land;  and  then,  turn- 
ing northward  and  eastward,  and  fancying  he 
had  found  a  cause  for  alleged  narrowness  and 
niggardUness  in  the  "accursed  policy  "  of  the 
tariff,  to  which  he  represented  the  people  of 
New  England  as  wedded,  he  went  on  for  a 
full  hour  with  remarks,  the  whole  scope  of 
which  was  to  exhibit  the  results  of  this  policy, 

§3 


TReplv  to  Ibagne 

in  feelings  and  in  measures  unfavorable  to  the 
west.     I  thought  his  opinions  unfounded  and 
erroneous   as   to   the   general   course  of   the 
government,  and  ventured  to  reply  to  them. 
The  gentleman  had  remarked  on  the  anal- 
ogy of   other  cases,  and  quoted  the  conduct 
of   European  governments  toward  their  own 
subjects  settUng  on  this  continent  as  in  point, 
to  show  that  we  had  been  harsh  and  rigid  in 
selling,  when  we  should  have  given  the  public 
lands  to  settlers  without  price.     I  thought  the 
honorable  member  had  suffered  his  judgment 
to  be  betrayed  by  a  false  analogy ;  that  he  was 
struck   with   an   appearance   of    resemblance 
where  there  was  no  real  simiHtude.     I  think 
so  still.     The  first  settlers  of  North  America 
were  enterprising  spirits,   engaged  in  private 
adventure,  or  fleeing  from  tyranny  at  home. 
When  arrived  here,   they  were  forgotten   by 
the  mother  country,  or  remembered  only  to 
be   oppressed.     Carried   away   again   by  the 
appearance  of  analogy,  or  struck  with  the  elo- 
quence of  the  passage,  the  honorable  member 
yesterday  observed  that  the  conduct  of  gov- 
ernment toward  the  western  emigrants,  or  my 
representation  of   it,   brought    to  his  mind  a 
celebrated  speech  in  the  British  parhament. 
It  was,  sir,  the  speech  of  Colonel  Barre.     On 


IReplB  to  Ibasne 

the  question  of  the  stamp  act,  or  tea  tax,  I 
forget  which,  Colonel  Barre  had  heard  a 
member  on  the  treasury  bench  argue,  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  being  British 
colonists,  planted  by  the  maternal  care,  nour- 
ished by  the  indulgence,  and  protected  by  the 
arms  of  England,  would  not  grudge  their  mite 
to  reheve  the  mother  country  from  the  heavy 
burden  under  which  she  groaned.  The  lan- 
guage of  Colonel  Barre,  in  reply  to  this,  was  : 
*'They  planted  by  your  care?  Your  oppres- 
sion planted  them  in  America.  They  fled 
from  your  tyranny,  and  grew  by  your  neglect 
of  them.  So  soon  as  you  began  to  care  for 
them,  you  showed  your  care  by  sending  per- 
sons to  spy  out  their  liberties,  misrepresent 
their  character,  prey  upon  them,  and  eat  out 
their  substance." 

And  how  does  the  honorable  gentleman 
mean  to  maintain  that  language  like  this  is 
applicable  to  the  conduct  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States  toward  the  western  emi- 
grants, or  to  any  representation  given  by  me 
of  that  conduct  ?  Were  the  settlers  in  the 
west  driven  thither  by  our  oppression  .''  Have 
they  flourished  only  by  our  neglect  of  them  ? 
Has  the  government  done  nothing  but  to  prey 
upon  them,  and  eat  out  their  substance .-'  Sir, 
65 


IRcpls  to  Iba^ne 

this  fervid  eloquence  of  the  British  speaker, 
just  when  and  where  it  was  uttered,  and  fit  to 
remain  an  exercise  for  the  schools,  is  not  a 
little  out  of  place  when  it  is  brought  thence  to 
be  applied  here,  to  the  conduct  of  our  own 
country  toward  her  own  citizens.  From  America 
to  England,  it  may  be  true  ;  from  Americans 
to  their  own  government,  it  would  be  strange 
language.  Let  us  leave  it  to  be  recited  and 
declaimed  by  our  boys  against  a  foreign 
nation  ;  not  introduce  it  here,  to  recite  and 
declaim  ourselves  against  our  own. 

(Webster  reiterates  his  views  as  to  the  proper 
method  of  handling  the  public  lands  and  brings 
his  opponent  back  to  the  real  question.  Has  the 
doctrine  been  advanced  at  the  south  or  the  east 
that  the  population  of  the  west  should  be  retarded 
or  at  least  not  be  hastened  ?  Is  this  doctrine  of 
eastern  origin  ?  New  England  is  guiltless  of  any 
such  policy.) 

We  approach,  at  length,  sir,  to  a  more  im- 
portant part  of  the  honorable  gentleman's 
observation.  Since  it  does  not  accord  with 
my  views  of  justice  and  policy  to  give  away 
the  public  lands  altogether,  as  mere  matter 
of  gratuity,  I  am  asked  by  the  honorable  gen- 
tleman on  what  ground  it  is  that  I  consent 
to  vote  them  away  in  particular  instances. 
66 


•ReplB  to  "fcagnc 

•  How,  he  inquires,  do  I  reconcile  with  these 
professed  sentiments  my  support  of  measures 
appropriating  portions  of  the  lands  to  particu- 
lar roads,  particular  canals,  particular  rivers, 
and  particular  institutions  of  education  in  the 
west  ?  This  leads,  sir,  to  the  real  and  wide 
difference  in  pohtical  opinion  between  the 
honorable  gentleman  and  myself.  On  my 
part,  I  look  upon  all  these  objects  as  con- 
nected with  the  common  good,  fairly  em- 
braced in  its  object  and  its  terms  ;  he,  on  the 
contrary,  deems  them  all,  if  good  at  all,  only 
local  good.  This  is  our  difference.  The  in- 
terrogatory which  he  proceeded  to  put,  at 
once  explains  this  difference.  "What  inter- 
est," asks  he,  "has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal 
in  Ohio.?"  Sir,  this  very  question  is  full  of 
significance.  It  develops  the  gentleman's 
whole  political  system  ;  and  its  answer  ex- 
pounds mine.  Here  we  differ.  I  look  upon 
a  road  over  the  AUeghanies,  a  canal  round 
the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  or  a  canal  or  railway 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  western  waters,  as 
being  an  object  large  and  extensive  enough  to 
be  fairly  said  to  be  for  the  common  benefit." 

14.  The  question  of  internal  improvements  at  public  expense  was  one 
upon  which  the  older  political  parties  divided.  Since  1789,  money  has 
been  steadily  appropriated  by  congress  for  the  building  of  lighthouses, 
and  other  coast  improvements,  but  the  first  actual  appropriation  for  a 

67 


IRepIg  to  Iba^ne 

The  gentleman  thinks  otherwise,  and  this  is 
the  key  to  his  construction  of  the  powers  of 
the  government.  He  may  well  ask  what  in- 
terest has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal  in  Ohio. 
On  his  system,  it  is  true,  she  has  no  interest. 
On  that  system,  Ohio  and  Carolina  are  differ- 
ent governments  and  different  countries  ;  con- 
nected here,  it  is  true,  by  some  slight  and  ill- 
defined  bond  of  union,  but  in  all  main  respects 
separate  and  diverse.  On  that  system  Caro- 
lina has  no  more  interest  in  a  canal  in  Ohio 
than  in  Mexico.  The  gentleman,  therefore, 
only  follows  out  his  own  principles ;  he  does 
no  more  than  arrive  at  the  natural  conclusions 
of  his  own  doctrines ;  he  only  announces  the 
true  results  of  that  creed  which  he  has  adopted 
himself,  and  would  persuade  others  to  adopt, 
when  he  thus  declares  that  South  Carolina 
has  no  interest  in  a  public  work  in  Ohio. 

Sir,  we  narrow-minded  people  of  New 
England  do  not  reason  thus.  Our  jiotion  of 
things  is  entirely  different.  We  look  upon 
the  states,  not  as  separated,  but  as  united. 
We  love  to  dwell  on  that  union,  and  on  the 

strictly  internal  improvement  was  in  1806,  when  money  was  granted  for 
the  construction  of  the  Cumberland  Road  from  Cumberland  on  the 
Potomac  to  the  Ohio.  This  road  was  continued  as  far  as  Illinois  in  1838, 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  his  followers  advocated  such  measures  and  the 
fact  was  instrumental  in  his  defeat  for  a  second  term.  At  the  time  of  the 
great  debate  the  discussion  of  this  policy  was  becoming  somewhat  bitter. 

68 


ROBERT  YOUNG  HAYNE 


1Repli5  to  Iba^ne 

mutual  happiness  which  it  has  so  much  pro- 
moted, and  the  common  renown  which  it  has 
so  greatly  contributed  to  acquire.  In  our  con- 
templation, Carolina  and  Ohio  are  parts  of  the 
same  country;  states  united  under  the  same 
general  government,  having  interests  com- 
mon, associated,  intermingled.  In  whatever 
is  within  the  proper  sphere  of  the  constitu- 
tional power  of  this  government,  we  look 
upon  the  states  as  one.  We  do  not  impose 
geographical  limits  to  our  patriotic  feeling  or 
regard;  we  do  not  follow  rivers  and  mountains, 
and  lines  of  latitude,  to  find  boundaries  be- 
yond which  public  improvements  do  not  benefit 
us.  We  who  come  here  as  agents  and  repre- 
sentatives of  these  narrow-minded  and  selfish 
men  of  New  England,  consider  ourselves  as 
bound  to  regard  with  an  equal  eye  the  good  of 
the  whole,  in  whatever  is  within  our  power  of 
legislation.  Sir,  if  a  railroad  or  canal,  begin- 
ning in  South  Carolina  and  ending  in  South 
Carolina,  appeared  to  me  to  be  of  national 
importance  and  national  magnitude,  believing, 
as  I  do,  that  the  power  of  government  extends 
to  the  encouragement  of  works  of  that  de- 
scription, if  I  were  to  stand  up  here  and  ask, 
What  interest  has  Massachusetts  in  a  railroad 
in  South  Carolina .-'  I  should  not  be  willing  to 
69 


TRcplg  to  Iba^ne 

face  my  constituents.  These  same  narrow- 
minded  men  would  tell  me,  that  they  had  sent 
me  to  act  for  the  whole  country,  and  that  one 
who  possessed  too  little  comprehension,  either 
of  intellect  or  feeling,  one  who  was  not  large 
enough,  both  in  mind  and  in  heart,  to  em- 
brace the  whole,  was  not  fit  to  be  intrusted 
with  the  interest  of  any  part. 

Sir,  I  do  not  desire  to  enlarge  the  powers  of 
the  government  by  unjustifiable  construction 
nor  to  exercise  any  not  within  a  fair  inter- 
pretation. But  when  it  is  believed  that  a 
power  does  exist,  then  it  is,  in  my  judgment, 
to  be  exercised  for  the  general  benefit  of  the 
whole.  So  far  as  respects  the  exercise  of 
such  a  power,  the  states  are  one.  It  was  the 
very  object  of  the  constitution  to  create  unity 
of  interests  to  the  extent  of  the  powers  of  the 
general  government.  In  war  and  peace  we 
are  one;  in  commerce,  one;  because  the 
authority  of  the  general  government  reaches 
to  war  and  peace,  and  to  the  regulation  of 
commerce.  I  have  never  seen  any  more 
difficulty  in  erecting  lighthouses  on  the  lakes, 
than  on  the  ocean;  in  improving  the  harbors 
of  inland  seas,  than  if  they  were  within  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  tide;  or  in  removing  obstruc- 
tions in  the  vast  streams  of  the  west,  more 
70 


■Replg  to  IbaBne 

then  in  any  work  to  facilitate  commerce  on 
the  Atlantic  coast.  If  there  be  any  power  for 
one,  there  is  power  also  for  the  other  ;  and 
they  are  all  and  equally  for  the  common  good 
of  the  country. 

(The  proceeds  of  the  public  lands  should  be  a 
common  fund  for  the  benefit  of  the  new  states. 
This  principle  northern  votes  have  established. 
Hayne  has  asked  when,  how,  and  why  New  Eng- 
land votes  were  found  going  for  measures  favor- 
able to  the  west,  and  insinuates  that  it  began  in 
1825  and  while  a  presidential  election  was  pend- 
ing.) 

Sir,  to  these  questions  retort  would  be 
justified;  and  it  is  both  cogent  and  at  hand. 
Nevertheless,  I  will  answer  the  inquiry,  not 
by  retort,  but  by  facts.  I  will  tell  the  gentle- 
man when,  and  how,  and  why  New  England 
has  supported  measures  favorable  to  the  west. 
I  have  already  referred  to  the  early  history  of 
the  government,  to  the  first  acquisition  of  the 
lands,  to  the  original  laws  for  disposing  of 
them,  and  for  governing  the  territories  where 
they  lie ;  and  have  shown  the  influence  of 
New  England  men  and  New  England  princi- 
ples in  all  these  leading  measures.  I  should 
not  be  pardoned  were  I  to  go  over  that  ground 
again.  Coming  to  more  recent  times,  and  to 
71 


TRepls  to  Da^nc 

measures  of  a  less  general  character,  I  have 
endeavored  to  prove  that  everything  of  this 
kind,  designed  for  v^^estern  improvement,  has 
depended  on  the  votes  of  New  England  ;  all 
this  is  true  beyond  the  power  of  contradic- 
tion. And  now,  sir,  there  are  two  measures 
to  which  I  will  refer,  not  so  ancient  as  to  be- 
long to  the  early  history  of  the  public  lands, 
and  not  so  recent  as  to  be  on  this  side  of  the 
period  when  the  gentleman  charitably  imag- 
ines a  new  direction  may  have  been  given  to 
New  England  feeling  and  New  England  votes. 
These  measures,  and  the  New  England  votes 
in  support  of  them,  may  be  taken  as  samples 
and  specimens  of  all  the  rest. 

In  1820  (observe,  Mr.  President,  in  1820), 
the  people  of  the  west  besought  congress  for 
a  reduction  in  the  price  of  lands.  In  favor  of 
that  reduction.  New  England,  with  a  delega- 
tion of  forty  members  in  the  other  house,  gave 
thirty-three  votes,  and  one  only  against  it. 
The  four  southern  states,  with  over  fifty  mem- 
bers, gave  thirty-two  votes  for  it,  and  seven 
against  it.  Again,  in  1821  (observe  again,  sir, 
the  time),  the  law  passed  for  the  relief  of  the 
purchasers  of  the  public  lands.  This  was  a 
measure  of  vital  importance  to  the  west,  and 
more  especially  to  the  southwest.  It  author- 
72 


IRcpls  to  fba^nc 

ized  the  relinquishment  of  contracts  for  lands 
which  had  been  entered  into  at  high  prices, 
and  a  reduction  in  other  cases  of  not  less 
than  thirty-seven  and  a  half  per  cent  on  the 
purchase-money.  Many  millions  of  dollars, 
six  or  seven  I  believe,  at  least  —  probably  much 
more  —  were  relinquished  by  this  law.  On 
this  bill,  New  England,  with  her  forty  mem- 
bers, gave  more  affirmative  votes  than  the 
four  southern  states,  with  their  fifty-two  or 
three  members.  These  two  are  far  the  most 
important  general  measures  respecting  the 
public  lands  which  have  been  adopted  within 
the  last  twenty  years.  They  took  place  in 
1820  and  1 82 1.     That  is  the  time  when. 

As  to  the  manner  Jioiv,  the  gentleman 
already  sees  that  it  was  by  voting  in  solid 
column  for  the  required  relief.  And,  lastly, 
as  to  the  cause  why,  I  tell  the  gentleman  it 
was  because  the  members  from  New  England 
thought  the  measures  just  and  salutary;  be- 
cause they  entertained  toward  the  west 
neither  envy,  hatred,  nor  malice  ;  because 
they  deemed  it  becoming  them,  as  just 
and  enlightened  men,  to  meet  the  exigency 
which  had  arisen  in  the  west  with  the  ap- 
propriate measure  of  relief;  because  they  felt 
it  due  to  their  own  characters,  and  the  char- 

73 


1Repl2  to  tba^nc 

acters  of  their  New  England  predecessors  in 
this  government,  to  act  toward  the  new  states 
in  the  spirit  of  a  hberal,  patronizing,  magnani- 
mous policy.  So  much,  sir,  for  the  cause 
zvAjy,  and  I  hope  that  by  this  time,  sir,  the 
honorable  gentleman  is  satisfied;  if  not,  I  do 
not  know  when,  or  how,  or  why  he  ever 
will  be.       .       . 

This  government,  Mr.  President,  from  its 
origin  to  the  peace  of  1815,  had  been  too 
much  engrossed  with  various  other  important 
concerns  to  be  able  to  turn  its  thoughts  in- 
ward, and  look  to  the  development  of  its  vast 
internal  resources.  In  the  early  part  of  Presi- 
dent Washington's  administration,  it  was  fully 
occupied  with  completing  its  own  organiza- 
tion, providing  for  the  public  debt,  defending 
the  frontiers,  and  maintaining  domestic  peace. 
Before  the  termination  of  that  administration, 
the  fires  of  the  French  revolution  blazed  forth, 
as  from  a  nevv'-opened  volcano,  and  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  ocean  did  not  secure  us  from 
its  effects.  The  smoke  and  the  cinders  reached 
us,  though  not  the  burning  lava.  Difficult 
and  agitating  questions,  embarrassing  to  gov- 
ernment and  dividing  public  opinion,  sprung 
out  of  the  new  state  of  our  foreign  relations, 
and  were  succeeded  by  others,  and  yet  again 
74 


IRepIg  to  Iba^ne 

by  others,  equally  embarrassing  and  equally 
exciting  division  and  discord,  through  the  long 
series  of  twenty  years,  till  they  finally  issued 
in  the  war  with  England.  Down  to  the  close 
of  that  war,  no  distinct,  marked,  and  de- 
liberate attention  had  been  given,  or  could 
have  been  given,  to  the  internal  condition  of 
the  country,  its  capacities  of  improvement,  or 
the  constitutional  power  of  the  government  in 
regard  to  objects  connected  with  such  improve- 
ment. 

The  peace,  Mr.  President,  brought  about  an 
entirely  new  and  a  most  interesting  state  of 
things  ;  it  opened  to  us  other  prospects  and 
suggested  other  duties.  We  ourselves  were 
changed,  and  the  whole  world  was  changed. 
The  pacification  of  Europe,  after  June,  1815, 
assumed  a  firm  and  permanent  aspect.  The 
nations  evidently  manifested  that  they  were 
disposed  for  peace.  Some  agitation  of  the 
waves  might  be  expected,  even  after  the  storm 
had  subsided,  but  the  tendency  was,  strongly 
and  rapidly,  toward  settled  repose. 

It  so  happened,  sir,  that  I  was  at  that  time 
a  member  of  congress,  and,  like  others, 
naturally  turned  my  attention  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  newly  altered  condition  of 
the  country  and  of  the  world.     It    appeared 

75 


IReplB  to  "fcasnc 

plainly  enough  to  me,  as  well  as  to  wiser  and 
more  experienced  men,  that  the  policy  of  the 
government  would  naturally  take  a  start  in  a 
new  direction;  because  new  directions  would 
necessarily  be  given  to  the  pursuits  and  occu- 
pations of  the  people.      We  had  pushed  our 
commerce  far  and  fast,  under  the  advantage 
of  a   neutral    ilag.     But  there  were   now  no 
longer   flags,    either   neutral    or    belligerent. 
The  harvest  of  neutrality  had  been  great,  but 
we  had  gathered  it  all.     With  the  peace  of 
Europe,  it  was  obvious  there  would  spring  up 
in  her  circle  of  nations  a  revived  and  invigor- 
ating spirit  of  trade,   and  a  new   activity  in 
all  the  business  and  objects  of  civilized  life. 
Hereafter,  our  commercial  gains  were   to  be 
earned  only  by  success  in  a  close  and  intense 
competition.      Other   nations   would   produce 
for  themselves,  and  carry  for  themselves,  and 
manufacture  for  themselves,  to  the  full  extent 
of   their  abihties.       The  crops  of   our  plains 
would  no  longer  sustain  European  armies,  nor 
our  ships  longer  supply  those  whom  war  had 
rendered  unable  to  supply  themselves.      It  was 
obvious  that,  under  these  circumstances,   the 
country  would  begin  to  survey  itself,  and  to 
estimate  its  own  capacity  of  improvement. 
And  this  improvement  —  how  was  it  to  be 
76 


IRcplB  to  Ibagne 

accomplished,  and  who  was  to  accomplish 
it  ?  We  were  ten  or  twelve  millions  of 
people,  spread  over  almost  half  a  world. 
We  were  more  than  twenty  states,  some 
stretching  along  the  same  seaboard,  some 
along  the  same  line  of  inland  frontier,  and 
others  on  opposite  banks  of  the  same  vast 
rivers.  Two  considerations  at  once  presented 
themselves,  in  looking  at  this  state  of  things, 
with  great  force.  One  was,  that  that  great 
branch  of  improvement  which  consisted  in 
furnishing  new  facilities  of  intercourse  neces- 
sarily ran  into  different  states  in  every  leading 
instance,  and  would  benefit  the  citizens  of  all 
such  states.  No  one  state,  therefore,  in  such 
cases,  would  assume  the  whole  expense,  nor 
was  the  cooperation  of  several  states  to  be  ex- 
pected. Take  the  instance  of  the  Delaware 
breakwater.^  It  will  cost  several  millions  of 
money.  Would  Pennsylvania  alone  ever  have 
constructed  it  .-•  Certainly  never,  while  this 
Union  lasts,  because  it  is  not  for  her  sole 
benefit.  Would  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
and  Delaware  have  united  to  accomplish  it  at 
their   joint   expense.'*     Certainly  not,   for  the 


15.  The  Delaware  breakwater  was  authorized  by  congress  in  1829,  and 
work  was  begun  at  Cape  Henlopen.  In  1869  the  work  was  completed,  and 
Delaware  Bay  was  made  an  excellent  harbor. 

77 


IRcplB  to  Iba^nc 

same  reason.  It  could  not  be  done,  there- 
fore, but  by  the  general  government.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  large  inland  under- 
takings, except  that,  in  them,  government, 
instead  of  bearing  the  whole  expense,  co- 
operates with  others  who  bear  a  part.  The 
other  consideration  is,  that  the  United  States 
have  the  means.  They  enjoy  the  revenues 
derived  from  commerce,  and  the  states  have 
no  abundant  and  easy  sources  of  public  in- 
come. The  custom-houses  fill  the  general 
treasury,  while  the  states  have  scanty  re- 
sources, except  by  resort  to  heavy  direct 
taxes. 

Under  this  view  of  things,  I  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  settle,  at  least  for  myself,  some  defi- 
nite notions  with  respect  to  the  powers  of 
the  government  with  regard  to  internal  af- 
fairs. It  may  not  savor  too  much  of  self- 
commendation  to  remark,  that,  with  this 
object,  I  considered  the  constitution,  its 
judicial  construction,  its  contemporaneous 
exposition,  and  the  whole  history  of  the 
legislation  of  congress  under  it;  and  I  arrived 
at  the  conclusion,  that  government  had  power 
to  accomplish  sundry  objects,  or  aid  in  their 
accomplishment,  which  are  now  commonly 
spoken  of  as  Internal  Improvements. 
78 


IRcplc  to  Ibafiiie 

That  conclusion,  sir,  may  have  been  right,  or 
it  may  have  been  wrong.  I  am  not  about  to 
argue  the  grounds  of  it  at  large.  I  say  only, 
that  it  was  adopted  and  acted  on  even  so 
early  as  in  1816.  Yes,  Mr.  President,  I  made 
up  my  opinion,  and  determined  on  my  in- 
tended course  of  political  conduct,  on  these 
subjects,  in  the  fourteenth  congress,  in  18 16. 
And  now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  further  to 
say,  that  I  made  up  these  opinions,  and  en- 
tered on  this  course  of  political  conduct, 
Teiicro  ducc.  '^  Yes,  sir,  I  pursued  in  all  this 
a  South  Carolina  track.  On  the  doctrines  of 
internal  improvement.  South  Carolina,  as  she 
was  then  represented  in  the  other  house,  set 
forth  in  1816  under  a  fresh  and  leading  breeze, 
and  I  was  among  the  followers.  But  if  my 
leader  sees  new  lights  and  turns  a  sharp  cor- 
ner, unless  I  see  new  lights  also,  I  keep 
straight  on  in  the  same  path,  I  repeat,  that 
leading  gentlemen  from  South  Carolina  were 
first  and  foremost  in  behalf  of  the  doctrines  of 
internal  improvements,  when  those  doctrines 
came  first  to  be  considered  and  acted  upon  in 
congress.     The  debate  on  the  bank  question, 


16.  'leucer  being  the  leader.  Teucer  was  one  of  tlie  leaders  of  the 
Greeks  in  the  Trojan  war.  Mr.  Calhoun  was  then  President  of  the 
Senate,  being  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 

79 


1RepIi2  to  IDasne 

on  the  tariff  of  1816,  and  on  the  direct  tax, 
will  show  who  was  who,  and  what  was  what, 
at  that  time. 

The  tariff  of  18 16  (one  of  the  plain  cases  of 
oppression  and  usurpation,  from  which,  if  the 
government  does  not  recede,  individual  states 
may  justly  secede  from  the  government)  is, 
sir,  in  truth,  a  South  Carolina  tariff,  supported 
by  South  Carolina  votes.  But  for  those  votes 
it  could  not  have  passed  in  the  form  in  which 
it  did  pass;  whereas,  if  it  had  depended  on 
Massachusetts  votes,  it  would  have  been  lost. 
Does  not  the  honorable  gentleman  well  know 
all  this  ?  There  are  certainly  those  who  do, 
full  well,  know  it  all.  I  do  not  say  this  to 
reproach  South  Carolina.  I  only  state  the  fact; 
and  I  think  it  will  appear  to  be  true,  that 
among  the  earliest  and  boldest  advocates  of 
the  tariff,  as  a  measure  of  protection,  and  on 
the  express  ground  of  protection,  were  lead- 
ing gentlemen  of  South  Carolina  in  congress. 
I  did  not  then,  and  can  not  now,  understand 
their  language  in  any  other  sense.     *     *     * 

Such,  Mr.  President,  were  the  opinions 
of  important  and  leading  gentlemen  from 
South  Carolina,  on  the  subject  of  internal 
improvement,  in  1816.  I  went  out  of  con- 
gress the  next  year,  and,  returning  again  in 
80 


IRcpls  to  Iba^ne 

1823,  thought  I  found  South  Carolina  where  I 
had  left  her.  I  really  supposed  that  all  things 
remained  as  they  were,  and  that  the  South 
Carolina  doctrine  of  internal  improvements 
would  be  defended  by  the  same  eloquent 
voices,  and  the  same  strong  arms,  as  for- 
merly. In  the  lapse  of  these  six  years,  it  is 
true,  political  associations  had  assumed  a  new 
aspect  and  new  divisions.  A  strong  party 
had  risen  in  the  south  hostile  to  the  doctrine 
of  internal  improvements,  and  had  vigorously 
attacked  that  doctrine.  Anticonsolidation 
was  the  flag  under  which  this  party  fought; 
and  its  supporters  inveighed  against  internal 
improvements,  much  after  the  manner  in 
which  the  honorable  gentleman  has  now  in- 
veighed against  them,  as  part  and  parcel  of 
the  system  of  consolidation.  Whether  this 
party  arose  in  South  Carolina  herself,  or  in 
her  neighborhood,  is  more  than  I  knov/.  I 
think  the  latter.  However  that  may  have 
been,  there  were  those  found  in  South  Caro- 
lina ready  to  make  war  upon  it,  and  who 
did  make  intrepid  war  upon  it.  Names  being 
regarded  as  things  in  such  controversies,  they 
bestowed  on  the  anti-improvement  gentlemen 
the  appellation  of  radicals.  Yes,  sir,  the 
appellation  of  radicals,   as  a  term  of  distinc- 


TRepli2  to  Iba^ne 

tion  applicable  and  applied  to  those  who 
denied  the  liberal  doctrines  of  internal  im- 
provement, originated,  according  to  the  best 
of  my  recollection,  somev/here  between 
North  Carolina  and  Georgia.  Well,  sir, 
these  mischievous  radicals  were  to  be  put 
down,  and  the  strong  arm  of  South  Carolina 
was  stretched  out  to  put  them  down.  About 
this  time,  sir,  I  returned  to  congress.  The 
battle  with  the  radicals  had  been  fought,  and 
our  South  Carolina  champions  of  the  doc- 
trines of  internal  improvement  had  nobly 
maintained  their  ground,  and  were  under- 
stood to  have  achieved  a  victory.  We  looked 
upon  them  as  conquerors.  They  had  driven 
back  the  enemy  with  discomfiture  —  a  thing, 
by  the  way,  sir,  which  is  not  always  per- 
formed when   it  is  promised. 

(Mr.  Webster  quotes  from  a  member  from 
South  Carolina  who  in  a  printed  speech  asserted 
that  the  system  of  internal  improvements  was 
first  advocated  by  Mr.  Calhoun.  This  opinion 
was  held  when  Webster  took  his  seat  in  congress 
and  subsequently  a  bill  authorizing  the  system  in 
fact  was  voted  for  by  South  Carolina  members; 
he  followed  that  light  till  1824.  After  an  inter- 
ruption by  Mr.  Calhoun  to  which  he  replies 
neatly,  he  proceeds:  "  I  have  thus  *  *  *  shown 
82 


TRcplg  to  Iba^ne 

if  I  am  in  error  on  the  subject  of  internal  im- 
provement, how  and  in  what  company  I  fell  into 
that  error.  If  I  am  wrong  it  is  apparent  who 
misled  me.") 

On  yet  another  point  I  was  still  more  unac- 
countably misunderstood.  The  gentleman 
had  harangued  against  "consolidation."  I 
told  him,  in  reply,  that  there  was  one  kind  of 
consolidation  to  which  I  was  attached,  and 
that  was  the  consoHdation  of  our  Union  ;  that 
this  was  precisely  that  consolidation  to  which 
I  feared  others  were  not  attached  ;  that  such 
consolidation  was  the  very  end  of  the  consti- 
tution, the  leading  object,  as  they  had  informed 
us  themselves,  which  its  framers  had  kept  in 
view.  I  turned  to  their  communication,  and 
read  their  very  words,  '  *  The  consoHdation 
of  .the  Union,  "  and  expressed  my  devotion 
to  this  sort  of  consolidation.  I  said,  in  terms, 
that  I  wished  not  in  the  slightest  degree 
to  augment  the  powers  of  this  government ; 
that  my  object  was  to  preserve,  not  to  en- 
large ;  and  that  by  consolidating  the  Union 
I  understood  no  more  than  the  strengthening 
of  the  Union,  and  perpetuating  it.  Having 
been  thus  explicit,  having  thus  read  from 
the  printed  book  the  precise  words  which  I 

83 


IReplB  to  Iba^nc 

adopted,  as  expressing  my  own  sentiments, 
it  passes  comprehension  how  any  man  could 
understand  me  as  contending  for  an  extension 
of  the  powers  of  the  government,  or  for  con- 
solidation in  that  odious  sense  in  which  it 
means  an  accumulation,  in  the  federal  gov- 
ernment, of  the  powers  properly  belonging  to 
the  states. 

(The  orator  explains  his  position  on  the  tarifE 
question,  which  Hayne  had  claimed  to  be  contra- 
dictory. He  had  voted  against  the. tariff  in  1824 
but  in  1S2S  he  had  merely  voted  to  amend  an 
existing  law  for  the  benefit  of  his  constituents. 
He  then  dismisses  the  tariff  question.) 

Professing  to  be  provoked  by  what  he  chose 
to  consider  a  charge  made  by  me  against  South 
Carolina,  the  honorable  member,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, has  taken  up  a  new  crusade  against  New 
England.  Leaving  altogether  the  subject  of 
the  public  lands,  in  which  his  success,  per- 
haps, had  been  neither  distinguished  nor  satis- 
factory, and  letting  go,  also,  of  the  topic  of 
the  tariff,  he  sallied  forth  in  a  general  assault 
on  the  opinions,  politics,  and  parties  of  New 
England,  as  they  have  been  exhibited  in  the 
last  thirty  years.  This  is  natural.  The  ' '  nar- 
row policy"  of  the  public  lands  had  proved  a 
84 


IRepls  to  Ibagne 

legal  settlement  in  South  Carolina,  and  was 
not  to  be  removed.  The  "  accursed  policy " 
of  the  tariff,  also,  had  established  the  fact  of 
its  birth  and  parentage  in  the  same  state. 
No  wonder,  therefore,  the  gentleman  wished 
to  carry  the  war,  as  he  expressed  it,  into  the 
enemy's  country.  Prudently  willing  to  quit 
these  subjects,  he  was,  doubtless,  desirous  of 
fastening  on  others  which  could  not  be  trans- 
ferred south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The 
politics  of  New  England  became  his  theme; 
and  it  was  in  this  part  of  his  speech,  I  think, 
that  he  menaced  me  with  sore  discomfiture. 
Discomfiture!  Why,  sir,  when  he  attacks 
anything  which  I  maintain,  and  overthrows  it, 
when  he  turns  the  right  or  left  of  any  position 
which  I  take  up,  when  he  drives  me  from 
any  ground  I  choose  to  occupy,  he  may 
then  talk  of  discomfiture,  but  not  till  that 
distant  day.  What  has  he  done  ?  Has  he 
maintained  his  own  charges  .■'  Has  he  proved 
what  he  alleged?  Has  he  sustained  him- 
self in  his  attack  on  the  government,  and 
on  the  history  of  the  north,  in  the  matter  of 
the  public  lands .''  Has  he  disproved  a  fact, 
refuted  a  proposition,  weakened  an  argument, 
maintained  by  me  .-'  Has  he  come  within  beat 
of  drum  of  any  position  of  mine  .-'  O,  no;  but 
85 


TRepls  to  "ttJaBne 

he  has  "carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
country!  "  Carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
country  1  Yes,  sir,  and  what  sort  of  a  war  has 
he  made  of  it  ?  Why,  sir,  he  has  stretched  a 
drag-net  over  the  whole  surface  of  perished 
pamphlets,  indiscreet  sermons,  frothy  para- 
graphs, and  fuming  popular  addresses,  over 
whatever  the  pulpit  in  its  moments  of  alarm, 
the  press  in  its  heats,  and  parties  in  their 
extravagances,  have  severally  thrown  off  in 
times  of  general  excitement  and  violence. 
He  has  thus  swept  together  a  mass  of  such 
things  as,  but  that  they  are  now  old  and  cold, 
the  public  health  would  have  required  him 
rather  to  leave  in  their  state  of  dispersion. 
For  a  good  long  hour  or  two,  we  had  the 
unbroken  pleasure  of  listening  to  the  honorable 
member,  while  he  recited  with  his  usual  grace 
and  spirit,  and  with  evident  high  gusto, 
speeches,  pamphlets,  addresses,  and  all  the 
et  ccteras  of  the  political  press,  such  as  warm 
heads  produce  in  warm  times,  and  such  as  it 
would  be  "discomfiture"  indeed  for  any  one 
whose  taste  did  not  delight  in  that  sort  of 
reading  to  be  obliged  to  peruse.  This  is  his 
war.  This  it  is  to  carry  war  into  the  enemy's 
country.  It  is  by  an  invasion  of  this  sort  that 
he  flatters  himself  with  the  expectation  of  gain- 
ing laurels  fit  to  adorn  a  senator's  brow! 

86 


TRcpls  to  Ibasne 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  not — it  will  not,  I 
trust,  be  expected  that  I  should — either  now 
or  at  any  time,  separate  this  farrago  into  parts, 
and  answer  and  examine  its  components.  I 
shall  hardly  bestow  upon  it  all  a  general  re- 
mark or  two.  In  the  run  of  forty  years,  sir, 
under  this  constitution,  we  have  experienced 
sundry  successive  violent  party  contests.  Party 
arose,  indeed,  with  the  constitution  itself,  and, 
in  some  form  or  other,  has  attended  it  through 
the  greater  part  of  its  history.  Whether  any 
other  constitution  than  the  old  articles  of  con- 
federation was  desirable,  was  itself  a  question 
on  which  parties  formed;  if  a  new  constitu- 
tion were  framed,  what  powers  should  be  given 
to  it  was  another  question;  and  when  it  had 
been  formed,  what  was,  in  fact,  the  just  extent 
of  the  powers  actually  conferred  was  a  third. 
Parties,  as  we  know,  existed  under  the  first 
administration,  as  distinctly  marked  as  those 
which  have  manifested  themselves  at  any  sub- 
sequent period.  The  contest  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  political  change  in  1801,  and  that, 
again,  which  existed  at  the  commencement  of 
the  late  war,  are  other  instances  of  party  ex- 
citement, of  something  more  than  usual  strength 
and  intensity.  In  all  these  conflicts  there  was, 
no  doubt,  much  of  violence  on  both  and  all 
sides.     It  would  be  impossible,  if  one  had  a 

87 


TReplg  to  Iba^ne 

fancy  for  such  employment,  to  adjust  the 
relative  qtiantiivi  of  violence  between  these 
contending  parties.  There  was  enough  in 
each,  as  must  always  be  expected  in  popular 
governments.  With  a  great  deal  of  proper  and 
decorous  discussion,  there  was  mingled  a  great 
deal,  also,  of  declamation,  virulence,  crimina- 
tion, and  abuse.  In  regard  to  any  party,  prob- 
ably, at  one  of  the  leading  epochs  in  the  history 
of  parties,  enough  may  be  found  to  make  out 
another  equally  inflamed  exhibition,  as  that 
with  which  the  honorable  member  has  edified 
us.  For  myself,  sir,  I  shall  not  rake  among 
the  rubbish  of  bygone  times,  to  see  what  I 
can  find,  or  whether  I  cannot  find  something 
by  which  I  can  fix  a  blot  on  the  escutcheon  of 
any  state,  any  party,  or  any  part  of  the  coun- 
try. General  Washington's  administration 
was  steadily  and  zealously  maintained,  as  we 
all  know,  by  New  England.  It  was  violently 
opposed  elsewhere.  We  know  in  what  quarter 
he  had  the  most  earnest,  constant,  and  perse- 
vering support,  in  all  his  great  and  leading 
measures.  We  know  where  his  private  and 
personal  character  was  held  in  the  highest 
degree  of  attachment  and  veneration;  and  we 
know,  too,  where  his  measures  were  opposed, 
his  services  slighted,  and  his  character  viUfied. 


TRcpl^  to  Ibagne 

"We  know,  or  we  might  know  if  we  turned  to 
the  journals,  who  expressed  respect,  gratitude 
and  regret  when  he  retired  from  the  chief  mag- 
istracy, and  who  refused  to  express  either  re- 
spect, gratitude  or  regret.  I  shall  not  open  those 
journals.  Publications  more  abusive  or  scur- 
rilous never  saw  the  light,  than  were  sent 
forth  against  Washington,  and  all  his  leading 
measures,  from  presses  south  of  New  England. 
But  I  shall  not  look  them  up.  I  employ  no 
scavengers;  no  one  is  in  attendance  on  me, 
tendering  such  means  of  retaliation;  and  if 
there  were,  with  an  ass's  load  of  them,  with  a 
bulk  as  huge  as  that  which  the  gentleman  him- 
self has  produced,  I  would  not  touch  one  of 
them.  I  see  enough  of  the  violence  of  our 
own  times,  to  be  no  way  anxious  to  rescue 
from  forgetfulness  the  extravagances  of  times 
past. 

Mr.  President,  in  carrying  his  warfare,  such 
as  it  is,  into  New  England,  the  honorable 
gentleman  all  along  professes  to  be  acting  on 
the  defensive.  He  elects  to  consider  me  as 
having  assailed  South  Carolina,  and  insists 
that  he  comes  forth  only  as  her  champion, 
and  in  her  defense.  Sir,  I  do  not  admit  that 
I  made  any  attack  whatever  on  South  Caro- 
lina. Nothing  like  it.  The  honorable  mem- 
89 


IRepls  to  Iba^ne 

ber,  in  his  first  speech,  expressed  opinions,  in 
regard  to  revenue  and  some  other  topics, 
which  I  heard  both  with  pain  and  with  sur- 
prise. I  told  the  gentleman  I  was  aware  that 
such  sentiments  were  entertained  out  of  the 
government,  but  had  not  expected  to  find 
them  advanced  in  it;  that  I  knew  there  were 
persons  in  the  south  who  speak  of  our  Union 
with  indifference  or  doubt,  taking  pains  to 
magnify  its  evils,  and  to  say  nothing  of  its 
benefits;  that  the  honorable  member  himself, 
I  was  sure,  could  never  be  one  of  these; 
and  I  regretted  the  expression  of  such  opin- 
ions as  he  had  avowed,  because  I  thought 
their  obvious  tendency  was  to  encourage  feel- 
ings of  disrespect  to  the  Union,  and  to  weaken 
its  connection.  This,  sir,  is  the  sum  and 
substance  of  all  I  said  on  the  subject.  And 
this  constitutes  the  attack  which  called  on  the 
chivalry  of  the  gentleman,  in  his  own  opinion, 
to  harry  us  with  such  a  foray  among  the  party 
pamphlets  and  party  proceedings  of  Massa- 
chusetts! If  he  means  that  I  spoke  with 
dissatisfaction  or  disrespect  of  the  ebullitions 
of  individuals  in  South  Carolina,  it  is  true. 
But  if  he  means  that  I  had  assailed  the  char- 
acter of  the  state,  her  honor  or  patriotism, 
that  I  had  reflected  on  her  history  or  her 
90 


TRcplv  to  "toavne 

conduct,  he  has  not  the  sHghtest  ground  for 
any  such  assumption.  I  did  not  even  refer,  I 
think,  in  my  observations,  to  any  collection  of 
individuals.  I  said  nothing  of  the  recent  con- 
ventions. I  spoke  in  the  most  guarded  and 
careful  manner,  and  only  expressed  my  regret 
for  the  publication  of  opinions  which  I  pre- 
sumed the  honorable  member  disapproved  as 
much  as  myself.  In  this,  it  seems,  I  was  mis- 
taken. I  do  not  remember  that  the  gentle- 
man has  disclaimed  any  sentiment,  or  any 
opinion,  of  a  supposed  anti-Union  tendency, 
which  on  all  or  any  of  the  recent  occasions 
has  been  expressed.  The  whole  drift  of  his 
speech  has  been  rather  to  prove,  that,  in 
divers  times  and  manners,  sentiments  equally 
liable  to  my  objection  have  been  avowed  in 
New  England. 

(Webster  points  out  an  inconsistency  in  Hayne's 
argument,  and  then  questions  the  object  of  the 
Hartford  convention,  and  shows  the  absurdity  of 
charging  the  government  of  New  England  with  the 
misinterpreted  acts  of  an  unauthorized  conven- 
tion.) 

Then,    sir,  the  gentleman  has  no   fault  to 

find  with  these  recently  promulgated   South 

Carolina    opinions.      And     certainly    he   need 

have  none;  for  his  own   sentiments,  as  now 

91 


IReplB  to  Ibasne 

advanced,  and  advanced  on  reflection,  as  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  comprehend  them,  go 
the  full  length  of  all  these  opinions.  I  pro- 
pose, sir,  to  say  something  on  these,  and  to 
consider  how  far  they  are  just  and  constitu- 
tional. Before  doing  that,  however,  let  me 
observe  that  the  eulogium  pronounced  on  the 
character  of  the  state  of  [South  Carolina,  by 
the  honorable  gentleman,  for  her  revolutionary 
and  other  merits,  meets  my  hearty  concur- 
rence, I  shall  not  acknowledge  that  the  hon- 
orable member  goes  before  me  in  regard  for 
whatever  of  distinguished  talent,  or  distin- 
guished character,  South  Carolina  has  pro- 
duced. I  claim  part  of  the  honor,  I  partake 
in  the  pride,  of  her  great  names.  I  claim 
them  for  countrymen,  one  and  all  —  the  Lau- 
renses,  the  Rutledges,  the  Pinckneys,  the 
Sumters,  the  Marions,  Americans  all,  whose 
fame  is  no  more  to  be  hemmed  in  by  state 
lines,  than  their  talents  and  patriotism  were 
capable  of  being  circumscribed  within  the 
same  narrow  limits.  In  their  day  and  gen- 
eration, they  served  and  honored  the  country, 
and  the  whole  country;  and  their  renown  is 
of  the  treasures  of  the  whole  country.  Him 
whose  honored  name  the  gentleman  himself 
92 


IRcpls  to  Ibaisne 

bears" — does  he  esteem  me  less  capable  of 
gratitude  for  his  patriotism,  or  sympathy  for 
his  sufferings,  than  if  his  eyes  had  first  opened 
upon  the  light  of  Massachusetts,  instead  of 
South  Carohna  ?  Sir,  does  he  suppose  it  in 
his  power  to  exhibit  a  Carolina  name  so 
bright,  as  to  produce  envy  in  my  bosom  ? 
No,  sir;  increased  gratification  and  delight, 
rather,  I  thank  God,  that,  if  I  am  gifted 
with  little  of  the  spirit  which  is  able  to  raise 
mortals  to  the  skies,  I  have  yet  none,  as  I 
trust,  of  that  other  spirit,  which  would  drag 
angels  down.  When  I  shall  be  found,  sir,  in 
my  place  here  in  the  senate,  or  elsewhere,  to 
sneer  at  public  merit,  because  it  happens  to 
spring  up  beyond  the  little  limits  of  my  own 
state  or  neighborhood;  when  I  refuse,  for  any 
such  cause,  or  for  any  cause,  the  homage  due 
to  American  talent,  to  elevated  patriotism, 
to  sincere  devotion  to  liberty  and  the  country; 
or,  if  I  see  an  uncommon  endowment  of 
Heaven,  if  I  see  extraordinary  capacity  and 
virtue,  in  any  son  of  the  south,  and  if,  moved 

17.  Isaac  Hayne,  great-uncle  of  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  who  was  executed  by 
the  joint  order  of  Colonel  Balfour  and  Lord  Rawdon.  Hayne  had  taken 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  British  on  condition  that  he  should  not  be 
obliged  to  bear  arms.  He  was  forced  into  service ;  and  on  account  of 
this  broke  his  parole,  and  became  an  American  officer.  Ue  was  captured 
by  the  British  and  hanged. 

93 


IRepIg  to  Iba^ne 

by  local  prejudice  or  gangrened  by  state  jeal- 
ousy, I  get  up  here  to  abate  the  tithe  of  a 
hair  from  his  just  character  and  just  fame, 
may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my 
mouth. 

Sir,  let  me  recur  to  pleasing  recollections; 
let  m^e  indulge  in  refreshing  remembrances  of 
the  past;  let  me  remind  you  that,  in  early 
times,  no  states  cherished  greater  harmony, 
both  of  principle  and  feeling,  than  Massachu- 
setts and  South  Carolina.  Would  to  God 
that  harmony  might  again  return!  Shoulder 
to  shoulder  they  went  through  the  revolution; 
hand  in  hand  they  stood  round  the  adminis- 
tration of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own  great 
arm  lean  on  them  for  support.  Unkind  feel- 
ing, if  it  exists,  alienation  and  distrust,  are 
the  growth,  unnatural  to  such  soils,  of  false 
principles  since  sown.  They  are  weeds,  the 
seeds  of  which  that  same  great  arm  never 
scattered. 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium 
upon  Massachusetts;  she  needs  none.  There 
she  is.  Behold  her,  and  judge  for  yourselves. 
There  is  her  history;  the  world  knows  it  by 
heart.  The  past,  at  least,  is  secure.  There 
is  Boston,  and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and 
Bunker  Hill;  and  there  they  will  remain  for- 
94 


TRcpls  to  Iba^nc 

ever.  The  bones  of  her  sons,  fallen  in  the 
great  struggle  for  independence,  now  lie 
mingled  with  the  soil  of  every  state  from  New 
England  to  Georgia;  and  there  they  will  lie 
forever.  And,  sir,  where  American  liberty 
raised  its  first  voice,  and  where  its  youth  was 
nurtured  and  sustained,  there  it  still  lives,  in 
the  strength  of  its  manhood  and  full  of  its 
original  spirit.  If  discord  and  disunion  shall 
wound  it,  if  party  strife  and  blind  ambition 
shall  hawk  at  and  tear  it,  if  folly  and  madness, 
if  uneasiness  under  salutary  and  necessary 
restraint,  shall  succeed  in  separating  it  from 
that  Union,  by  which  alone  its  existence  is 
made  sure,  it  will  stand,  in  the  end,  by  the 
side  of  that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was 
rocked;  it  will  stretch  forth  its  arm,  with 
whatever  of  vigor  it  may  still  retain,  over  the 
friends  who  gather  round  it;  and  it  will  fall  at 
last,  if  fall  it  must,  amidst  the  proudest  monu- 
ments of  its  own  glory,  and  on  the  very  spot 
of  its  origin. 

There  yet  remains  to  be  performed,  Mr. 
President,  by  far  the  most  grave  and  important 
duty  which  I  feel  to  be  devolved  on  me  by 
this  occasion.  It  is  to  state,  and  to  defend, 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  principles  of 
the  constitution  under  which  we  are  here 
95 


"ReplB  to  Da^ne 

assembled.  I  might  well  have  desired  that  so 
weighty  a  task  should  have  fallen  into  other 
and  abler  hands.  I  could  have  wished  that  it 
should  have  been  executed  by  those  whose 
character  and  experience  give  weight  and  in- 
fluence to  their  opinions,  such  as  cannot 
possibly  belong  to  mine.  But,  sir,  I  have  met 
the  occasion,  not  sought  it;  and  I  shall  pro- 
ceed to  state  my  own  sentiments,  without 
challenging  for  them  any  particular  regard, 
with  studied  plainness,  and  as  much  precision 
as  possible. 

I  understand  the  honorable  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina  to  maintain  that  it  is  a  right 
of  the  state  legislatures  to  interfere,  whenever, 
in  their  judgment,  this  government  transcends 
its  constitutional  limits,  and  to  arrest  the 
operation  of  its  laws. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  this  right  as  a 
right  existing  under  the  constitution,  not  as  a 
right  to  overthrow  it  on  the  ground  of  extreme 
necessity,  such  as  would  justify  violent  revo- 
lution, 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  an  authority, 
on  the  part  of  the  states,  thus  to  interfere,  for 
the  purpose  of  correcting  the  exercise  of  power 
by  the  general  government,  of  checking  it,  and 
of  compeUing  it  to  conform  \q  their  opinion  of 
the  extent  of  its  powers, 
96 


IRepls  to  Iba^nc 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  that  the  ulti- 
mate power  of  judging  of  the  constitutional 
extent  of  its  own  authority  is  not  lodged  ex- 
clusively in  the  general  government,  or  any 
branch  of  it;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
states  may  lawfully  decide  for  themselves,  and 
each  state  for  itself,  whether,  in  a  given  case, 
the  act  of  the  general  government  transcends 
its  power. 

I  understand  him  to  insist  that,  if  the  exi- 
gency of  the  case,  in  the  opinion  of  any  state 
government,  require  it,  such  state  government 
may,  by  its  own  sovereign  authority,  annul 
an  act  of  the  general  government  which  it 
deems  plainly  and  palpably  unconstitutional. 

This  is  the  sum  of  what  I  understand  from 
him  to  be  the  South  Carolina  doctrine,  and 
the  doctrine  which  he  maintains.  I  propose 
to  consider  it,  and  compare  it  with  the  consti- 
tution. Allow  me  to  say,  as  a  preliminary 
remark,  that  I  call  this  the  South  Carolina 
doctrine  only  because  the  gentleman  himself 
has  so  denominated  it.  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  say  that  South  Carolina,  as  a  state,  has 
ever  advanced  these  sentiments.  I  hope  she 
has  not,  and  never  may.  That  a  great  ma- 
jority of  her  people  are  opposed  to  the  tariff 
laws,  is  doubtless  true.  That  a  majority, 
somewhat  less  than  that  just  mentioned,  con- 
97 


IReplB  to  •fca^nc 

scientiously  believe  these  laws  unconstitutional, 
may  probably  also  be  true.  But  that  any 
majority  holds  to  the  right  of  direct  state 
interference  at  state  discretion,  the  right  of 
nullifying  acts  of  congress  by  acts  of  state 
legislation,  is  more  than  I  know,  and  what  I 
shall  be  slow  to  believe. 

That  there  are  individuals  besides  the  hon- 
orable gentleman  who  do  maintain  these 
opinions,  is  quite  certain.  I  recollect  the 
recent  expression  of  a  sentiment  which  cir- 
cumstances attending  its  utterance  and  publi- 
cation justify  us  in  supposing  was  not  unpre- 
meditated: "The  sovereignty  of  the  state  — 
never  to  be  controlled,  construed,  or  decided 
on,  but  by  her  own  feelings  of  honorable 
justice. " 

(Here  occur  two  interruptions  by  Mr.  Hayne, 
one  in  which  he  reads  the  resolution  on  which  he 
relies  for  his  authority.  Webster  contends  that 
Hayne's  interpretation  of  the  resolution  is  incor- 
rect. The  latter  explains  that  he  contends  for 
constitutional  resistance.  Webster  is  glad  he 
does  not  misunderstand,  and  he  does  not  admit 
the  truth  of  the  proposition;  asserts  that  it  can- 
not be  maintained;  admits  an  ultimate,  violent 
remedy,  that  is,  revolution;  and  denies  that  there 
is  any  mode  in  which  a  state,  '*  as  a  member  of 


IRepls  to  Ibagne 

the  Union,  can  interfere  and  stop  the  progress  of 
the  general  government  by  force  of  her  own  laws 
under  any  circumstances  whatever.") 


The  inherent  right  in  the  people  to  reform 
their  government  I  do  not  deny;  and  they 
have  another  right,  and  that  is,  to  resist 
unconstitutional  laws,  without  overturning  the 
government.  It  is  no  doctrine  of  mine  that 
unconstitutional  laws  bind  the  people.  The 
great  question  is,  Whose  prerogative  is  it 
to  decide  on  the  constitutionality  or  unconsti- 
tutionality of  the  laws  ?  On  that,  the  main 
debate  hinges. 

This  leads  us  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of 
this  government  and  the  source  of  its  power. 
Whose  agent  is  it  ?  Is  it  the  creature  of  the 
state  legislatures,  or  the  creature  of  the  peo- 
ple ?  If  the  government  of  the  United  States 
be  the  agent  of  the  state  governments,  then 
they  may  control  it,  provided  they  can  agree 
'n  the  manner  of  controlling  it;  if  it  be  the 
agent  of  the  people,  then  the  people  alone 
can  control  it,  restrain  it,  modify  or  reform  it. 
It  is  observable  enough,  that  the  doctrine  for 
which  the  honorable  gentleman  contends 
leads  him  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining,  not 
only   that    this   general    government   is    the 

99 


IReplB  to  Ibagne 

creature  of  the  states,  but  that  it  is  the 
creature  of  each  of  the  states  severally,  so 
that  each  may  assert  the  power  for  itself  of 
determining  whether  it  acts  within  the  limits 
of  its  authority.  It  is  the  servant  of  four- 
and-twenty  masters,  of  different  wills  and 
different  purposes,  and  yet  bound  to  obey 
all.  This  absurdity  (for  it  seems  no  less) 
arises  from  a  misconception  as  to  the  origin 
of  this  government  and  its  true  character.  It 
is,  sir,  the  people's  constitution,  the  people's 
government,  made  for  the  people,  made  by 
the  people,  and  answerable  to  the  people." 
The  people  of  the  United  States  have  declared 
that  this  constitution  shall  be  the  supreme 
law.  We  must  either  admit  the  proposition, 
or  dispute  the  authority.  The  states  are, 
unquestionably,  sovereign,  so  far  as  their 
sovereignty  is  not  affected  by  this  supreme 
law.  But  the  state  legislatures,  as  political 
bodies,  however  sovereign,  are  yet  not 
sovereign  over  the  people.  So  far  as  the 
people  have  given  power  to  the  general  gov- 
ernment, so  far  the  grant  is  unquestionably 
good,  and  the  government  holds  of  the  peo- 


i8.  Compare  with  the  sentence  in  Lincoln's  Gettsysburg  address. 
Theodore  Parker  uses  the  expression,  "A  government  of  all  the  people, 
by  all  the  people,  for  ail  the  people." 


TRepls  to  Ibasnc 

pie,  and  not  of  the  state  governments.  We 
are  all  agents  of  the  same  supreme  power,  the 
people.  The  general  government  and  the 
state  governments  derive  their  authority  from 
the  same  source.  Neither  can,  in  relation  to 
the  other,  be  called  primary,  though  one  is 
definite  and  restricted,  and  the  other  general 
and  residuary.  The  national  government 
possesses  those  powers  which  it  can  be  shown 
the  people  have  conferred  on  it,  and  no  more. 
All  the  rest  belongs  to  the  state  governments, 
or  to  the  people  themselves.  So  far  as  the 
people  have  restrained  state  sovereignty,  by 
the  expression  of  their  will,  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  so  far,  it  must  be 
admitted,  state  sovereignty  is  effectually  con- 
trolled. I  do  not  contend  that  it  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  controlled  farther.  The  sentiment  to 
which  I  have  referred  propounds  that  state 
sovereignty  is  only  to  be  controlled  by  its  own 
"feeling  of  justice;"  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  to 
be  controlled  at  all,  for  one  who  is  to  follow 
his  own  feelings  is  under  no  legal  control. 
Now,  however  men  may  think  this  ought  to 
be,  the  fact  is,  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  chosen  to  impose  control  on  state 
sovereignties.  There  are  those,  doubtless, 
who  wish  they  had  been  left  without  restraint; 


TReplfi  to  Iba^ne 

but  the  constitution  has  ordered  the  matter 
differently.  To  make  war,  for  instance,  is  an 
exercise  of  sovereignty;  but  the  constitution 
declares  that  no  state  shall  make  war.  To 
coin  money  is  another  exercise  of  sovereign 
power;  but  no  state  is  at  liberty  to  coin 
money.  Again,  the  constitution  says  that  no 
sovereign  state  shall  be  so  sovereign  as  to 
make  a  treaty.  These  prohibitions,  it  must 
be  confessed,  are  a  control  on  the  state  sov- 
ereignty of  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  of  the 
other  states,  which  does  not  arise  "from 
her  own  feelings  of  honorable  justice."  Such 
an  opinion,  therefore,  is  in  defiance  of  the 
plainest  provisions  of  the  constitution. 


(The  speaker  contends  that  under  the  resolutions 
and  constructions  placed  upon  them  by  his  oppo- 
nents, the  tariff  laws  are  all  such  palpable  usurpa- 
tion as  would  justify  the  states  in  exercising  their 
rights  of  nullification;  supposes  South  Carolina  so 
resolves  but  other  states  resolve  differently;  asks 
what  power  shall  decide.  He  then  ppints  out  the 
absurdity  of  the  claim  that  South  Carolina  had 
no  collision  with  the  King's  ministers  in  1775, 
and  asks  contemptuously  what  now  separates 
the  state  from  Old  England  instead  of  from  New 
England. ) 


1Repli2  to  Ibagne 

Resolutions,  sir,  have  been  recently  passed 
by  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina.  I  need 
not  refer  to  them;  they  go  no  farther  than  the 
honorable  gentleman  himself  has  gone,  and  I 
hope  not  so  far.  I  content  myself,  therefore, 
with  debating  the  matter  with  him. 

And  now,  sir,  what  I  have  first  to  say  on 
this  subject  is,  that  at  no  time,  and  under  no 
circumstances,  has  New  England,  or  any  state 
in  New  England,  or  any  respectable  body  of 
persons  in  New  England,  or  any  public  man  of 
standing  in  New  England,  put  forth  such  a 
doctrine  as  this  Carolina  doctrine. 

The  gentleman  has  found  no  case,  he  can 
find  none,  to  support  his  own  opinions  by  New 
England  authority.  New  England  has  studied 
the  constitution  in  other  schools,  and  under' 
other  teachers.  She  looks  upon  it  with  other 
regards,  and  deems  more  highly  and  reverently 
both  of  its  just  authority  and  its  utility  and 
excellence.  The  history  of  her  legislative 
proceedings  may  be  traced.  The  ephemeral 
effusions  of  temporary  bodies,  called  together 
by  the  excitement  of  the  occasion,  may  be 
hunted  up;  they  have  been  hunted  up.  The 
opinions  and  votes  of  her  public  men,  in  and 
out  of  congress,  may  be  explored.  It  will  all 
be  in  vain.     The  Carolina  doctrine  can  derive 


IRcplB  to  Ibasne 

from  her  neither  countenance  nor  support. 
She  rejects  it  now;  she  always  did  reject  it; 
and  till  she  loses  her  senses,  she  always  will 
reject  it.  The  honorable  member  has  re- 
ferred to  expressions  on  the  subject  of  the 
embargo  law,  made  in  this  place,  by  an  honor- 
able and  venerable  gentleman,  now  favoring 
us  with  his  presence.*  He  quotes  that  dis- 
tinguished senator  with  saying,  that,  in  his 
judgment,  the  embargo  law  was  unconsti- 
tutional, and  that,  therefore,  in  his  opinion, 
the  people  were  not  bound  to  obey  it.  That, 
sir,  is  perfectly  constitutional  language.  An 
unconstitutional  law  is  not  binding;  but  tJien  it 
does  not  rest  with  a  i'esohitio?i  or  a  law  of  a 
state  legislature  to  decide  whctJier  an  act  of 
congress  be  or  be  not  constitutio?ial.  An  un- 
constitutional act  of  congress  would  not  bind 
the  people  of  this  district,  although  they  have 
no  legislature  to  interfere  in  their  behalf;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  constitutional  law  of 
congress  does  bind  the  citizens  of  every  state, 
although  all  their  legislatures  should  under- 
take to  annul  it  by  act  or  resolution.  The 
venerable  Connecticut  senator  is  a  constitu- 
tional lawyer,  of  sound  principles  and  enlarged 
knowledge:  a  statesman  practiced  and  experi- 

19.    Mr.  Hillhouse,  of  Connecticut. 
104 


TRepls  to  Dagnc 

enced,  bred  in  the  company  of  Washington, 
and  holding  just  views  upon  the  nature  of  our 
governments.  He  believed  the  embargo  un- 
constitutional, and  so  did  others;  but  what 
then  ?  Who  did  he  suppose  was  to  decide 
that  question  ?  The  state  legislatures  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  No  such  sentiment  ever  escaped 
his  lips. 

Let  us  follow  up,  sir,  this  New  England 
opposition  to  the  embargo  laws;  let  us  trace 
it,  till  we  discern  the  principle  which  con- 
trolled and  governed  New  England  throughout 
the  whole  course  of  that  opposition.  We 
shall  then  see  what  similarity  there  is  between 
the  New  England  school  of  constitutional 
opinions  and  this  modern  Carolina  school. 
The  gentleman,  I  think,  read  a  petition  from 
some  single  individual,  addressed  to  the  legis- 
lature of  Massachusetts,  asserting  the  Carolina 
doctrine;  that  is,  the  right  of  state  interference 
to  arrest  the  laws  of  the  Union.  The  fate  of 
that  petition  shows  the  sentiment  of  the  legis- 
lature. It  met  no  favor.  The  opinions  of 
Massachusetts  were  otherwise.  They  had 
been    expressed    in    1798,^"  in   answer  to  the 

20.  The  Virginia  resolutions  were  passed  by  the  legislature  of  that 
state  in  1798,  in  antagonism  to  the  loose  construction  views  of  the 
Federalists.  The  resolutions  declared  the  Union  to  be  a  compact,  each 
party  to  which  had  a  right  to  "  interpose,"  in  order  to  protect  and  defend 
itself  against  any  infringements  of  the  compact. 

los 


TReplB  to  Ibasne 

resolutions  of  Virginia,  and  she  did  not  depart 
from  them,  nor  bend  them  to  the  times. 
Misgoverned,  wronged,  oppressed,  as  she  felt 
herself  to  be,  she  still  held  fast  her  integrity 
to  the  Union.  The  gentleman  may  find  in 
her  proceedings  much  evidence  of  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  measures  of  government,  and 
great  and  deep  dislike  to  the  embargo;  all  this 
makes  the  case  so  much  the  stronger  for  her; 
for,  notwithstanding  all  this  dissatisfaction 
and  dislike,  she  claimed  no  right,  still,  to  sever 
asunder  the  bonds  of  the  Union.  There  was 
heat  and  there  was  anger  in  her  political  feel- 
ing. Be  it  so;  her  heat  or  her  anger  did  not, 
nevertheless,  betray  her  into  infidehty  to  the 
government.  The  gentleman  labors  to  prove 
that  she  disliked  the  embargo  as  much  as 
South  Carolina  dislikes  the  tariff,  and  ex- 
pressed her  dislike  as  strongly.  Be  it  so; 
but  did  she  propose  the  Carolina  remedy.?  did 
she  threaten  to  interfere,  by  state  authority, 
to  annul  the  laws  of  the  Union  ?  That  is  the 
question  for  the  gentleman's  consideration. 

No  doubt,  sir,  a  great  majority  of  the  people 
of  New  England  conscientiously  believed  the 
embargo  law  of  1807  unconstitutional;  as  con- 
scientiously, certainly,  as  the  people  of  South 
Carolina  hold  that  opinion  of  the  tariff.  They 
106 


IRepI^  to  Iba^ne 

reasoned  thus:  Congress  has  power  to  regu- 
late commerce;  but  here  is  a  law,  they  said, 
stopping   all    commerce    and   stopping  it  in- 
definitely.    The  law  is  perpetual;  that  is,  it  is 
not    limited    in    point    of   time,    and  must  of 
course  continue  until  it  shall  be  repealed  by 
some  other  law.     It    is    as  perpetual,  there- 
fore,   as  the  law  against  treason  or  murder. 
Now  is  this  regulating  commerce,  or  destroy- 
ing it }       Is  it  guiding,  controlling,  giving  the 
rule  to  commerce,  as  a  subsisting  thing,   or  is 
it  putting  an  end  to  it  altogether  ?     Nothing 
is  more  certain,   than  that  a  majority  in  New 
England  deemed  this  law  a   violation  of  the 
constitution.      The  very  case  required  by  the 
gentleman    to    justify    state    interference  had 
then  arisen.      Massachusetts  believed  this  law 
to  be   "a  deliberate,  palpable,  and  dangerous 
exercise  of  a  power  not  granted  by  the  con- 
stitution."    Deliberate  it  was,  for  it  was  long 
continued;    palpable    she    thought   it,    as    no 
words    in   the   constitution    gave    the    power, 
and  only  a  construction,  in  her  opinion  most 
violent,   raised  it;  dangerous  it  was,    since  it 
threatened  utter  ruin  to  her  most  important 
interests.     Here,  then,   was  a  Carolina  case. 
How  did  Massachusetts  deal  with  it  ?     It  was, 
as   she    thought,   a  plain,   manifest,   palpable 
107 


TRcplB  to  Ibasne 

violation  of  the  constitution,  and  it  brought 
ruin  to  her  doors.  Thousands  of  famiHes, 
and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  individuals,  were 
beggared  by  it.  While  she  saw  and  felt  all 
this,  she  saw  and  felt  also,  that,  as  a  measure 
of  national  policy,  it  was  perfectly  futile;  that 
the  country  was  no  way  benefited  by  that 
which  caused  so  much  individual  distress;  that 
it  was  efficient  only  for  the  production  of  evil, 
and  all  that  evil  inflicted  on  ourselves.  In 
such  a  case,  under  such  circumstances,  how 
did  Massachusetts  demean  herself .''  Sir,  she 
remonstrated,  she  memorialized,  she  addressed 
herself  to  the  general  government,  not  ex- 
actly *  *  with  the  concentrated  energy  of  pas- 
sion," but  with  her  own  strong  sense  and  the 
energy  of  sober  conviction.  But  she  did  not 
interpose  the  arm  of  her  own  power  to  arre.st 
the  law  and  break  the  embargo.  Far  from 
it.  Her  principles  bound  her  to  two  things; 
and  she  followed  her  principles,  lead  where 
they  might.  First,  to  submit  to  every  con- 
stitutional law  of  congress,  and  secondly,  if 
the  constitutional  validity  of  the  law  be 
doubted,  to  refer  that  question  to  the  de- 
cision of  the  proper  tribunals.  The  first 
principle  is  vain  and  ineffectual  without  the 
second.    A  majority  of  us  in  New  England  be- 

10$  - 


IRcplB  to  Tbagne 

lieved  the  embargo  law  unconstitutional ;  but 
the  great  question  was,  and  always  will  be  in 
such  cases,  Who  is  to  decide  this  ?  Who  is  to 
judge  between  the  people  and  the  government  ? 
And,  sir,  it  is  quite  plain  that  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States  confers  on  the  government 
itself,  to  be  exercised  by  its  appropriate  de- 
partment, and  under  its  own  responsibility  to 
the  people,  this  power  of  deciding  ultimately 
and  conclusively  upon  the  just  extent  of  its 
own  authority.  If  this  had  not  been  done,  we 
should  not  have  advanced  a  single  step  beyond 
the  old  confederation. 

Being  fully  of  opinion  that  the  embargo 
law  was  unconstitutional,  the  people  of  New 
England  were  yet  equally  clear  in  the  opinion 
— it  was  a  matter  they  did  not  doubt  upon  — 
that  the  question,  after  all,  must  be  decided 
by  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the  United  States. 
Before  these  tribunals,  therefore,  they  brought 
the  question.  Under  the  provisions  of  the 
law,  they  had  given  bonds  to  millions  in 
amount,  and  which  were  alleged  to  be  for- 
feited. They  suffered  the  bonds  to  be  sued, 
and  thus  raised  the  question.  In  the  old- 
fashioned  way  of  settling  disputes,  they  went 
to  law.  The  case  came  to  hearing  and  solemn 
argument ;  and  he  who  espoused  their  causq, 
109 


TReplB  to  Ibasne 

and  stood  up  for  them  against  the  vaHdity  of 
the  embargo  act,  was  none  other  than  that 
great  man,  of  whom  the  gentleman  has  made 
honorable  mention,  Samuel  Dexter."  He 
was  then,  sir,  in  the  fullness  of  his  knowledge, 
and  the  maturity  of  his  strength.  He  had 
retired  from  long  and  distinguished  public  ser- 
vice here,  to  the  renewed  pursuit  of  profes- 
sional duties,  carrying  with  him  all  that  en- 
largement and  expansion,  all  the  new  strength 
and  force,  which  an  acquaintance  with  the 
more  general  subjects  discussed  in  the  national 
councils  is  capable  of  adding  to  professional 
attainment,  in  a  mind  of  true  greatness  and 
comprehension.  He  was  a  lawyer,  and  he 
was  also  a  statesman.  He  had  studied  the 
constitution,  when  he  filled  public  station, 
that  he  might  defend  it.  He  had  examined 
its  principles  that  he  might  maintain  them. 
More  than  all  men,  or  at  least  as  much  as 
any  man,  he  was  attached  to  the  general  gov- 
ernment and  to  the  union  of  the  states.  His 
feelings  and  opinions  all  ran  in  that  direction. 
A  question  of  constitutional  law,  too,  was,  of 
all  subjects,  that  one  which  was  best  suited  to 


21.  Samuel  Dexter  was  a  noted  Massachusetts  lawyer.  He  was  suc- 
cessively, for  short  periods,  secretary  of  war  and  secretary  of  the  treasury 
in  the  cabinet  of  President  John  Adams. 


no 


IRepIs  to  Iba^nc 

his  talents  and  learning.  Aloof  from  techni- 
cality, and  unfettered  by  artificial  rule,  such  a 
question  gave  opportunity  for  that  deep  and 
clear  analysis,  that  mighty  grasp  of  principle, 
which  so  much  distinguished  his  higher  efforts. 
His  very  statement  was  argument;  his  infer- 
ence seemed  demonstration.  The  earnestness 
of  his  own  conviction  wrought  conviction  in 
others.  One  was  convinced,  and  believed, 
and  assented,  because  it  was  gratifying,  de- 
lightful, to  think,  and  feel,  and  believe,  in 
unison  with  an  intellect  of  such  evident  supe- 
riority. 

Mr.  Dexter,  sir,  such  as  I  have  described 
him,  argued  the  New  England  cause.  He 
put  into  his  effort  his  whole  heart,  as  well  as 
all  the  powers  of  his  understanding;  for  he 
had  avowed,  in  the  most  public  manner,  his 
entire  concurrence  with  his  neighbors  on  the 
point  in  dispute.  He  argued  the  cause;  it 
was  lost,  and  New  England  submitted.  The 
established  tribunals  pronounced  the  law  con- 
stitutional, and  New  England  acquiesced. 
Now,  sir,  is  not  this  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  gentleman  from  South  Caro- 
lina .-*  According  to  him,  instead  of  referring 
to  the  judicial  tribunals,  we  should  have 
broken  up  the  embargo  by  laws  of  our  own  ; 


IRepI^  to  Daisne 

we   should    have    repealed    it,    quoad^^    New 
England  ;  for  we  had  a  strong,  palpable,    and 
oppressive  case.     Sir,    we    believed  the  em- 
bargo unconstitutional;  but  still  that  was  mat- 
ter  of    opinion,  and   who    was   to   decide   it  ? 
We  thought  it  a  clear  case;  but,  nevertheless, 
we  did  not  take  the  law  into  our  own  hands, 
because  we  did  not  wish  to  bring  about  a  rev- 
olution,  nor  to  break    up    the    Union;  for    I 
maintain,  that  between  submission  to  the  de- 
cision of  the  constituted  tribunals,  and  revolu- 
tion, or  disunion,  there  is  no  middle  ground; 
there   is  no  ambiguous  condition,  half  allegi- 
ance and  half  rebellion.     And,  sir,  how  futile, 
how  very  futile  it  is,  to  admit  the  right  of  state 
interference,  and  then  attempt  to  save  it  from 
the  character  of  unlawful  resistance  by  adding 
terms  of  qualification  to  the  causes  and  occa- 
sions, leaving  all  these  qualifications,  like  the 
case  itself,  in  the  discretion  of  the  state  gov- 
ernments!     It  must  be  a  clear  case,  it  is  said, 
a  deliberate  case,  a  palpable  case,  a  danger- 
ous case.     But  then  the  state  is  still  left  at 
Hberty  to  decide  for   herself   what    is   clear, 
what  is  deliberate,  what  is  palpable,  what  is 
dangerous.      Do  adjectives  and  epithets  avail 
anything  } 

22.  To  the  extent  of  New  England. 
112 


IRcplB  to  Ibasne 

Sir,  the  human  mind  is  so  constituted,  that 
the  merits  of  both  sides  of  a  controversy  ap- 
pear very  clear,  and  very  palpable,  to  those 
who  respectively  espouse  them;  and  both 
sides  usually  grow  clearer  as  the  controversy 
advances.  South  Carolina  sees  unconstitu- 
tionality in  the  tariff;  she  sees  oppression 
there,  also,  and  she  sees  danger.  Pennsyl- 
vania, with  a  vision  not  less  sharp,  looks  at 
the  same  tariff,  and  sees  no  such  thing  in  it; 
she  sees  it  all  constitutional,  all  useful,  all 
safe.  The  faith  of  South  Carolina  is  strength- 
ened by  opposition,  and  she  now  not  only 
sees,  but  resolves,  that  the  tariff  is  palpably 
unconstitutional,  oppressive,  and  dangerous; 
but  Pennsylvania,  not  to  be  behind  her  neigh- 
bors, and  equally  willing  to  strengthen  her 
own  faith  by  a  confident  asservation,  7'esoives, 
also,  and  gives  to  every  warm  affirmative  of 
South  Carolina  a  plain,  downright,  Pennsyl- 
vania negative.  South  Carolina,  to  show  the 
strength  and  unity  of  her  opinion,  brings  her 
assembly  to  a  unanimity,  within  seven  voices; 
Pennsylvania,  not  to  be  outdone  in  this  re- 
spect any  more  than  in  others,  reduces  her 
dissentient  fraction  to  a  single  vote.  Now, 
sir,  again,  I  ask  the  gentleman.  What  is  to  be 
done.''  Are  these  states  both  right.''  Is  he 
"3 


IRepls  to  1ba\)ne 

bound  to  consider  them  both  right?  If  not, 
which  is  in  the  wrong?  or  rather,  which  has 
the  best  right  to  decide?  And  if  he,  and  if  I, 
are  not  to  know  what  the  constitution  means, 
and  what  it  is,  till  those  two  state  legislatures, 
and  the  twenty-two  others,  shall  agree  in  its 
construction,  what  have  we  sworn  to,  when 
we  have  sworn  to  maintain  it!  I  was  forcibly- 
struck,  sir,  with  one  reflection,  as  the  gentle- 
man went  on  in  his  speech.  He  quoted  Mr. 
Madison's  resolutions,  to  prove  that  a  state 
may  interfere,  in  a  case  of  deliberate,  pal- 
pable, and  dangerous  exercise  of  a  power  not 
granted.  The  honorable  member  supposes 
the  tariff  law  to  be  such  an  exercise  of  power; 
and  that  consequently  a  case  has  arisen  in 
which  the  state  may,  if  it  see  fit,  interfere  by 
its  own  law.  Now  it  so  happens,  neverthe- 
less, that  Mr.  Madison  deems  this  same  tariff 
law  quite  constitutional.  Instead  of  a  clear 
and  palpable  violation,  it  is,  in  his  judgment, 
no  violation  at  all.  So  that,  while  they  use 
his  authority  for  a  hypothetical  case,  they  re- 
ject it  in  the  very  case  before  them.  All  this, 
sir,  shows  the  inherent  futility,  I  had  almost 
said  a  stronger  word,  of  conceding  this  power 
of  interference  to  the  states,  and  then  at- 
tempting to  secure  it  from  abuse  by  imposing 
114 


TRcplK  to  Dasne 

qualifications  of  which  the  states  themselves 
are  to  judge.  One  of  two  things  is  true; 
either  the  laws  of  the  Union  are  beyond  the 
discretion  and  beyond  the  control  of  the 
states,  or  else  we  have  no  constitution  of 
general  government,  and  are  thrust  back 
again  to  the  days  of  the  confederation. 

Let  me  here  say,  sir,  that  if  the  gentle- 
man's doctrine  had  been  received  and  acted 
upon  in  New  England,  in  the  times  of  the 
embargo  and  non-intercourse,  we  should  prob- 
ably not  now  have  been  here.  The  govern- 
ment would  very  likely  have  gone  to  pieces, 
and  crumbled  into  dust.  No  stronger  case 
can  ever  arise  than  existed  under  those  laws; 
no  states  can  ever  entertain  a  clearer  convic- 
tion than  the  New  England  states  then  enter- 
tained; and  if  they  had  been  under  the 
influence  of  that  heresy  of  opinion,  as  I  must 
call  it,  which  the  honorable  member  espouses, 
this  Union  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
been  scattered  to  the  four  winds.  I  ask  the 
gentleman,  therefore,  to  apply  his  principles 
to  that  case;  I  ask  him  to  come  forth  and  de- 
clare, whether,  in  his  opinion,  the  New 
England  states  would  have  been  justified  In 
interfering  to  break  up  the  embargo  system 
under  the  conscientious  opinions  which  they 
115 


TReplg  to  Ibagne 

tield  upon  it.  Had  they  a  right  to  annul 
that  law,  does  he  admit  or  deny?  If  what  is 
thought  palpably  unconstitutional  in  South 
Carohna  justifies  that  state  in  arresting  the 
progress  of  the  law,  tell  me  whether  that 
which  was  thought  palpably  unconstitutional 
also  in  Massachusetts  would  have  justified  her 
in  doing  the  same  thing.  Sir,  I  deny  the 
whole  doctrine.  It  has  not  a  foot  of  ground 
in  the  constitution  to  stand  on.  No  public 
man  of  reputation  ever  advanced  it  in  Massa- 
chusetts in  the  warmest  times,  or  could  main- 
tain himself  upon  it  there  at  any  time.  *  ^  * 
I  must  now  beg  to  ask,  sir,  Whence  is  this 
supposed  right  of  the  states  derived  ?  Where 
do  they  find  the  power  to  interfere  with  the 
laws  of  the  Union  ?  Sir,  the  opinion  which 
the  honorable  gentleman  maintains  is  a  notion 
founded  in  a  total  misapprehension,  in  my 
judgment,  of  the  origin  of  this  government, 
and  of  the  foundation  on  which  it  stands.  I 
hold  it  to  be  a  popular  government,  erected 
by  the  people;  those  who  administer  it, 
responsible  to  the  people;  and  itself  capable 
of  being  amended  and  modified,  just  as  the 
people  may  choose  it  should  be.  It  is  as  pop- 
ular, just  as  truly  emanating  from  the  people, 
as  the  state  governments.  It  is  created  for  one 
li6 


"ReplB  to  Ibasne 

purpose;  the  state  governments  for  another. 
It  has  its  own  powers;  they  have  theirs. 
There  is  no  more  authority  with  them  to 
arrest  the  operation  of  a  law  of  congress,  than 
with  congress  to  arrest  the  operation  of  their 
laws.  We  are  here  to  administer  a  constitu- 
tion emanating  immediately  from  the  people, 
and  trusted  by  them  to  our  administration. 
It  is  not  the  creature  of  the  state  govern- 
ments. It  is  of  no  moment  to  the  argument 
that  certain  acts  of  the  state  legislatures  are 
necessary  to  fill  our  seats  in  this  body.  That 
is  not  one  of  theix"  original  state  powers,  a  part 
of  the  sovereignty  of  the  state.  It  is  a  duty 
which  the  people,  by  the  constitution  itself, 
have  imposed  on  the  state  legislatures,  and 
which  they  might  have  left  to  be  performed 
elsewhere,  if  they  had  seen  fit.  So  they  have 
left  the  choice  of  president  with  electors;  but 
all  this  does  not  affect  the  proposition  that 
this  whole  government  —  president,  senate, 
and  house  of  representatives — is  a  popular 
government.  It  leaves  it  still  all  its  popular 
character.  The  governor  of  the  state  (in 
some  of  the  states)  is  chosen,  not  directly  by 
the  people,  but  by  those  who  are  chosen  by 
the  people  for  the  purpose  of  performing, 
among   other  duties,   that  of  electing  a  gov- 

"7 


IReplK  to  IbaBite 

ernor.  Is  the  government  of  the  state,  on 
that  account,  not  a  popular  government? 
This  government,  sir,  is  the  independent  off- 
spring of  the  popular  will.  It  is  not  the 
creature  of  state  legislatures;  nay,  more,  if 
the  whole  truth  must  be  told,  the  people 
brought  it  into  existence,  established  it,  and 
have  hitherto  supported  it,  for  the  very  pur- 
pose, amongst  others,  of  imposing  certain  sal- 
utary restraints  on  state  sovereignties.  The 
states  cannot  now  make  war;  they  cannot 
contract  alliances;  they  cannot  make,  each 
for  itself,  separate  regulations  of  commerce; 
they  cannot  lay  imposts;  they  cannot  coin 
money.  If  this  constitution,  sir,  be  the 
creature  of  state  legislatures,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  it  has  obtained  a  strange  control 
over  the  volition  of  its  creators. 

The  people,  then,  sir,  erected  this  govern- 
ment. They  gave  it  a  constitution,  and  in 
that  constitution  they  have  enumerated  the 
powers  which  they  bestow  on  it.  They  have 
made  it  a  limited  government.  They  have 
defined  its  authority.  They  have  restrained 
it  to  the  exercise  of  such  powers  as  are 
granted;  and  all  others,  they  declare,  are  re- 
served to  the  states  or  the  people.  But,  sir, 
they  have  not  stopped  here.  If  they  had, 
they  would  have  accomplished  but  half  their 


•Replg  to  Dasnc 

work.  No  definition  can  be  so  clear,  as  to 
avoid  possibility  of  doubt;  no  limitation  so 
precise,  as  to  exclude  all  uncertainty.  Who, 
then,  shall  construe  this  grant  of  the  people  ? 
Who  shall  interpret  their  will,  where  it  may 
be  supposed  they  have  left  it  doubtful .''  With 
whom  do  they  repose  this  ultimate  right  of 
deciding  on  the  powers  of  the  government .-' 
Sir,  they  have  settled  all  this  in  the  fullest 
manner.  They  have  left  it  with  the  govern- 
ment itself,  in  its  appropriate  branches.  Sir, 
the  very  chief  end,  the  main  design,  for 
which  the  whole  constitution  was  framed  and 
adopted,  was  to  establish  a  government  that 
should  not  be  obliged  to  act  through  state 
agency,  or  depend  on  state  opinion  and  state 
discretion.  The  people  had  had  quite  enough 
of  that  kind  of  government  under  the  confed- 
eracy. Under  that  system,  the  legal  action,  the 
application  of  law  to  individuals,  belonged  ex- 
clusively to  the  states.  Congress  could  only 
recommend;  their  acts  were  not  of  binding 
force  till  the  states  had  adopted  and  sanc- 
tioned them.  Are  we  in  that  condition  still  ? 
Are  we  yet  at  the  mercy  of  state  discretion 
and  state  construction  ?  Sir,  if  we  are,  then 
vain  will  be  our  attempt  to  maintain  the  con- 
stitution under  which  we  sit. 

But,  sir,  the  people  have  wisely  provided, 
119 


IRcpIg  to  Dasne 

in  the  constitution  itself,  a  proper,  suitable 
mode  and  tribunal  for  settling  questions  of 
constitutional  law.  There  are  in  the  consti- 
tution grants  of  powers  to  congress,  and 
restrictions  on  those  powers.  There  are,  also, 
prohibitions  on  the  states.  Some  authority 
must,  therefore,  necessarily  exist,  having  the 
ultimate  jurisdiction  to  fix  and  ascertain  the 
interpretation  of  these  grants,  restrictions,  and 
prohibitions.  The  constitution  has  itself 
pointed  out,  ordained,  and  estabhshed  that 
authority.  How  has  it  accomplished  this 
great  and  essential  end.-*  By  declaring,  sir, 
that  ^Hhe  constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  made  in  pursuafice  thereof 
shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  any- 
tiling  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  state 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.^^  ^^ 

This,  sir,  was  the  first  great  step.  By  this 
the  supremacy  of  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  United  States  is  declared.  The  people  so 
will  it.  No  state  law  is  to  be  valid  which 
comes  in  conflict  with  the  constitution,  or  any 
law  of  the  United  States  passed  in  pursuance 
of  it.  But  who  shall  decide  this  question  of 
interference  }  To  whom  lies  the  last  appeal  t 
This,  sir,  the  constitution   itself  decides  also, 

23.  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Art  VI>  Clause  2. 
X20 


IRcplB  to  •fcagnc 

by  declaring  *  *  t/iai  the  judicial  power  shall 
extend  to  all  cases  arising  under  the  cotistitu- 
tion  and  laws  of  tJie  United  States.'' ^^  These 
two  provisions,  sir,  cover  the  vv^hole  ground. 
They  are,  in  truth,  the  keystone  of  the  arch  ! 
With  these  it  is  a  government;  without  them 
it  is  a  confederacy.  In  pursuance  of  these 
clear  and  express  provisions,  congress  estab- 
lished, at  its  very  first  session,  in  the  judicial 
act,  a  mode  for  carrying  them  into  full  effect, 
and  for  bringing  all  questions  of  constitutional 
power  to  the  final  decision  of  the  supreme 
court.  It  then,  sir,  became  a  government. 
It  then  had  the  means  of  self-protection;  and 
but  for  this,  it  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
been  now  among  the  things  which  are  past. 
Having  constituted  the  government,  and  de- 
clared its  powers,  the  people  have  furtker 
said,  that,  since  somebody  must  decide  on  the 
extent  of  these  powers,  the  government  shall 
itself  decide;  subject,  always,  like  other  popu- 
lar governments,  to  its  responsibility  to  the 
people.  And  now,  sir,  I  repeat,  how  is  it  that 
a  state  legislature  acquires  any  power  to  inter- 
fere ?  Who,  or  what,  gives  them  the  right  to 
say  to  the  people,  "  We,  who  are  your  agents 
and  servants,  for  one  purpose,  will  undertake 

24,  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Art.  Ill,  Sec.  II,  Clause  i. 
121 


IReplg  to  Ibagne 

to  decide  that  your  other  agents  and  servants, 
appointed  by  you  for  another  purpose,  have 
transcended  the  authority  you  gave  them  "  ? 
The  reply  would  be,  I  think,  not  impertinent, 
—  "Who  made  you  a  judge  over  another's 
servants  ?  To  their  own  masters  they  stand 
or  fall." 

Sir,  I  deny  this  power  of  state  legislatures 
altogether.  It  cannot  stand  the  test  of 
examination.  Gentlemen  may  say,  that,  in 
an  extreme  case,  a  state  government  might 
protect  the  people  from  intolerable  oppression. 
Sir,  in  such  a  case,  the  people  might  protect 
themselves,  without  the  aid  of  the  state  gov- 
ernments. Such  a  case  warrants  revolution. 
It  must  make,  when  it  comes,  a  law  for  itself. 
A  nullifying  act  of  a  state  legislature  cannot 
alter  the  case,  nor  make  resistance  any  more 
lawful.  In  maintaining  these  sentiments,  sir, 
I  am  but  asserting  the  rights  of  the  people. 
I  state  what  they  have  declared,  and  insist  on 
their  right  to  declare  it.  They  have  chosen 
to  repose  this  power  in  the  general  government, 
and  I  think  it  my  duty  to  support  it,  like  other 
constitutional  powers. 

For  myself,  sir,  I  do  not  admit  the  juris- 
diction of  South  Carolina,  or  any  other  state, 
to   prescribe    my    constitutional   duty,    or   to 

122 


"KcplB  to  Ibasne 

settle,  between  me  and  the  people,  the  validity 
of  laws  of  congress  for  which  I  have  voted. 
I  decline  her  umpirage.  I  have  not  sworn  to 
support  the  constitution  according  to  her  con- 
struction of  its  clauses.  I  have  not  stipulated, 
by  my  oath  of  office  or  otherwise,  to  come 
under  any  responsibility,  except  to  the  people, 
and  those  whom  they  have  appointed  to  pass 
upon  the  question,  whether  laws  supported  by 
my  votes  conform  to  the  constitution  of  the 
country.  And,  sir,  if  we  look  to  the  general 
nature  of  the  case,  could  anything  have  been 
more  preposterous,  than  to  make  a  govern- 
ment for  the  whole  Union,  and  yet  leave  its 
powers  subject,  not  to  one  interpretation,  but 
to  thirteen  or  twenty-four  interpretations .'' 
Instead  of  one  tribunal,  established  by  all, 
responsible  to  all,  with  power  to  decide  for  all, 
shall  constitutional  questions  be  left  to  four- 
and-twenty  popular  bodies,  each  at  liberty  to 
decide  for  itself,  and  none  bound  to  respect 
the  decisions  of  others;  and  each  at  liberty, 
too,  to  give  a  new  construction  on  every  new 
election  of  its  own  members  ?  Would  any- 
thing with  such  a  principle  in  it,  or  rather  with 
such  a  destitution  of  all  principle,  be  fit  to  be 
called  a  government  ?  No,  sir.  It  should  not 
be  denominated  a  constitution.     It  should  be 

123 


IRepls  to  Ibaisnc 

called,  rather,  a  collection  of  topics  for  ever- 
lasting controversy;  heads  of  debate  for  a  dis- 
putatious people.  It  would  not  be  a  gov- 
ernment. It  would  not  be  adequate  to  any 
practical  good,  or  fit  for  any  country  to  live 
under. 

To  avoid  all  possibility  of  being  misunder- 
stood, allow  me  to  repeat  again,  in  the  fullest 
manner,  that  I  claim  no  powers  for  the  gov- 
ernment by  forced  or  unfair  construction.  I 
admit  that  it  is  a  government  of  strictly  limited 
powers;  of  enumerated,  specified,  and  particu- 
larized powers;  and  that  whatsoever  is  not 
granted,  is  withheld.  But  notwithstanding  all 
this,  and  however  the  grant  of  powers  may  be 
expressed,  its  limit  and  extent  may  yet,  in 
some  cases,  admit  of  doubt;  and  the  general 
government  would  be  good  for  nothing,  it 
would  be  incapable  of  long  existing,  if  some 
mode  had  not  been  provided  in  which  those 
doubts,  as  they  should  arise,  might  be  peace- 
ably but  authoritatively  solved. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  let  me  run  the 
honorable  gentleman's  doctrine  a  little  into  its 
practical  application.  Let  us  look  at  his 
probable  modus  operandi.''^  If  a  thing  can  be 
done,  an  ingenious  man  can  tell  how  it  is  to 

eS      Mode  of  operation. 

124 


TRepls  to  Ibn^ne 

be  done.  Now  I  wish  to  be  informed  /low 
this  state  interference  is  to  be  put  in  practice, 
without  violence,  bloodshed,  and  rebellion. 
We  will  take  the  existing  case  of  the  tariff 
law.  South  Carolina  is  said  to  have  made  up 
her  opinion  upon  it.  If  we  do  not  repeal  it,  (as 
we  probably  shall  not,)  she  will  then  apply  to 
the  case  the  remedy  of  her  doctrine.  She 
will,  we  must  suppose,  pass  a  law  of  her  legis- 
lature, declaring  the  several  acts  of  congress, 
usually  called  the  tariff  laws,  null  and  void,  so 
far  as  they  respect  South  Carolina,  or  the 
citizens  thereof.  So  far,  all  is  a  paper  trans- 
action, and  easy  enough.  But  the  collector 
at  Charleston  is  collecting  the  duties  imposed 
by  these  tariff  laws.  He,  therefore,  must  be 
stopped.  The  collector  will  seize  the  goods  if 
the  tariff  duties  are  not  paid.  The  state 
authorities  will  undertake  their  rescue;  the 
marshal,  with  his  posse,  will  come  to  the 
collector's  aid,  and  here  the  contest  begins. 
The  militia  of  the  state  will  be  called  out  to 
sustain  the  nullifying  act.  The}''  will  march, 
sir,  under  a  very  gallant  leader;  for  I  believe 
the  honorable  member  himself  commands  the 
militia  of  that  part  of  the  state.  He  will 
raise  the  nullifying  act  on  his  standard, 
and  spread  it  out  as  his  banner  !  It  will  have 
125 


IReplB  to  Ibasne 

a  preamble,  bearing  that  the  tariff  laws  are 
palpable,  deliberate,  and  dangerous  violations 
of  the  constitution  !  He  will  proceed,  with 
his  banner  flying,  to  the  custom-house  in 
Charleston, 

"All  the  while, 
Sonorous  metal  blowing  martial  sounds." 

Arrived  at  the  custom-house,  he  will  tell  the 
collector  that  he  must  collect  no  more  duties 
under  any  of  the  tariff  laws.  This  he  will  be 
somewhat  puzzled  to  say,  by  the  way,  with  a 
grave  countenance,  considering  what  hand 
South  Carolina  herself  had  in  that  of  1816. 
But,  sir,  the  collector  would  not,  probably, 
desist  at  his  bidding.  He  would  show  him 
the  law  of  congress,  the  treasury  instruction, 
and  his  own  oath  of  office.  He  would  say,  he 
should  perform  his  duty,  come  what  might. 

Here  would  come  a  pause;  for  they  say 
that  a  certain  stillness  precedes  the  tempest. 
The  trumpeter  would  hold  his  breath  awhile, 
and  before  all  this  military  array  should  fall  on 
the  custom-house,  collector,  clerks,  and  all,  it 
is  very  probable  some  of  those  composing  it 
would  request  of  their  gallant  commander-in- 
chief  to  be  informed  a  little  upon  the  point  of 
law;  for  they  have,  doubtless,  a  just  respect 
126 


IRcplB  to  Ibaisne 

for  his  opinions  as  a  lawyer,  as  well  as  for  his 
bravery  as  a  soldier.  They  know  he  has  read 
Blackstone"'  and  the  constitution,  as  well  as 
Turenne"  and  Vauban.^*  They  would  ask 
him,  therefore,  something  concerning  their 
rights  in  this  matter.  They  would  inquire, 
whether  it  was  not  somewhat  dangerous  to 
resist  a  law  of  the  United  States.  What 
would  be  the  nature  of  their  offense,  they 
would  wish  to  learn,  if  they,  by  military  force 
and  array,  resisted  the  execution  in  Carolina 
of  a  law  of  the  United  States,  and  it  should 
turn  out,  after  all,  that  the  law  zvas  constitu- 
tional? He  would  answer,  of  course,  treason. 
No  lawyer  could  give  any  other  answer. 
John  Fries, ^'  he  would  tell  them,  had  learned 
that,  some  years  ago.  How,  then,  they  would 
ask,  do  you  propose  to  defend  us  .-*  We  are 
not  afraid  of  bullets,  but  treason  has  a  way  of 
taking  people  off  that  we  do  not  much  relish. 
How  do  you  propose  to  defend  us  .''  "  Look 
at  my  floating  banner,"  he  would  reply;  "  see 
there  the  millifying  laiv  .'  "  Is  it  your  opinion, 
gallant  commander,  they  would  then  say,  that, 


26.  Eminent  English  law  commentator  — 1723. 

27.  Writer  and  soldier.     Marshal  of  France  in  1644. 

28.  Famous  French  military  engineer  —  1633-1707. 

29.  A  German  of  Eastern  Pennsylvania  who  opposed  the  collection  of 
taxes  levied  upon  his  house,  incited  riot  and  was  tried  for  treason,  1799. 

I2jr 


IRcplB  to  DaBne 

if  we  should  be  indicted  for  treason,  that 
same  floating  banner  of  yours  would  make  a 
good  plea  in  bar  ?  * '  South  Carolina  is  a 
sovereign  state,"  he  would  reply.  That  is 
true;  but  would  the  judge  admit  our  plea? 
*  *  These  tariff  laws, ' '  he  would  repeat,  ' '  are  un- 
constitutional, palpably,  deliberately,  danger- 
ously." That  may  all  be  so;  but  if  the  tribunal 
should  not  happen  to  be  of  that  opinion,  shall 
we  swing  for  it  ?  We  are  ready  to  die  for  our 
country,  but  it  is  rather  an  awkward  business, 
this  dying  without  touching  the  ground  !  After 
all,  that  is  a  sort  of  hemp  tax  worse  than  any 
part  of  the  tariff. 

Mr.  President,  the  honorable  gentleman 
would  be  in  a  dilemma,  like  that  of  another 
great  general.  He  would  have  a  knot  ^"  before 
him  which  he  could  not  untie.  He  must  cut 
it  with  his  sword.  He  must  say  to  his  fol- 
lowers, ' '  Defend  yourselves  with  your  bay- 
onets; "  and  this  is  war  —  civil  war. 

Direct  collision,  therefore,  between  force 
and  force,  is  the  unavoidable  result  of  that 
remedy   for  the   revision  of   unconstitutional 


30.  Gordius  was  a  peasant  who  became  king  of  Phrygia.  An  oracle 
declared  that  whoever  untied  the  knot  by  which  the  yoke  was  tied  to  his 
wagon  would  be  made  ruler  of  the  world.  Alexander  tried  and  not  suc- 
ceeding cut  the  knot  with  his  sword. 

12^ 


IReplg  to  Dasnc 

laws  which  the  gentleman  contends  for.  It 
must  happen  in  the  very  first  case  to  which  it 
is  applied.  Is  not  this  the  plain  result  .'*  To 
resist  by  force  the  execution  of  a  law,  gener- 
ally, is  treason.  Can  the  courts  of  the  United 
States  take  notice  of  the  indulgence  of  a  state 
to  commit  treason  ?  The  common  saying  that 
a  state  cannot  commit  treason  herself,  is 
nothing  to  the  purpose.  Can  she  authorize 
others  to  do  it  .■*  If  John  Fries  had  produced 
an  act  of  Pennsylvania,  annulling  the  law  of 
congress,  would  it  have  helped  his  case .'' 
Talk  about  it  as  we  will,  these  doctrines  go 
the  length  of  revolution.  They  are  incom- 
patible with  any  peaceable  administration  of  the 
government.  They  lead  directly  to  disunion 
and  civil  commotion  ;  and  therefore  it  is,  that 
at  their  commencement,  when  they  are  first 
found  to  be  maintained  by  respectable  men, 
and  in  a  tangible  form,  I  enter  my  public 
protest  against  them  all. 

The  honorable  gentleman  argues,  that  if 
this  government  be  the  sole  judge  of  the 
extent  of  its  own  powers,  whether  that  right 
of  judging  be  in  congress  or  the  supreme 
court,  it  equally  subverts  state  sovereignty. 
This  the  gentleman  sees,  or  thinks  he  sees, 
although  he  cannot  perceive  how  the  right 
129 


IRcplB  to  Da^ne 

of  judging,  in  this  matter,  if  left  to  the 
exercise  of  state  legislatures,  has  any  tend- 
ency to  subvert  the  government  of  the 
Union.  The  gentleman's  opinion  may  be, 
that  the  right  ought  not  to  have  been  lodged 
with  the  general  government;  he  may  Hke 
better  such  a  constitution  as  we  should  have 
under  the  right  of  state  interference;  but  I 
ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  plain  matter  of 
fact.  I  ask  him  to  meet  me  on  the  consti- 
tution itself.  I  ask  him  if  the  power  is  not 
found  there,  clearly  and  visibly  found  there  ? 

But,  sir,  what  is  this  danger,  and  what 
are  the  grounds  of  it }  Let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
is  not  unalterable.  It  is  to  continue  in  its 
present  form  no  longer  than  the  people  who 
established  it  shall  choose  to  continue  it.  If 
they  shall  become  convinced  that  they  have 
made  an  injudicious  or  inexpedient  partition 
and  distribution  of  power  between  the  state 
governments  and  the  general  government, 
they  can  alter  that  distribution  at  will. 

If  anything  be  found  in  the  national  consti- 
tution, either  by  original  provision  or  subse- 
quent interpretation,  which  ought  not  to  be 
in  it,  the  people  know  how  to  get  rid  of  it. 
If  any  construction  be  established  unaccept- 
130 


"Repls  to  Ibagnc 

able  to  them,  so  as  to  become  practically  a 
part  of  the  constitution,  they  will  amend  it, 
at  their  own  sovereign  pleasure.  But  while 
the  people  choose  to  maintain  it  as  it  is,  while 
they  are  satisfied  with  it,  and  refuse  to 
change  it,  who  has  given,  or  who  can  give, 
to  the  state  legislatures  a  right  to  alter  it, 
either  by  interference,  construction,  or  other- 
wise ?  Gentlemen  do  not  seem  to  recollect 
that  the  people  have  any  power  to  do  any- 
thing for  themselves.  They  imagine  there 
is  no  safety  for  them,  any  longer  than  they 
are  under  the  close  guardianship  of  the  state 
legislatures.  Sir,  the  people  have  not  trusted 
their  safety,  in  regard  to  the  general  consti- 
tution, to  these  hands.  They  have  required 
other  security,  and  taken  other  bonds.  They 
have  chosen  to  trust  themselves,  first,  to  the 
plain  words  of  the  instrument,  and  to  such 
construction  as  the  government  itself,  in 
doubtful  cases,  should  put  on  its  own  powers, 
and  under  their  oaths  of  office,  and  subject  to 
their  responsibility  to  them;  just  as  the  people 
of  a  state  trust  their  own  state  government 
with  a  similar  power.  Secondly,  they  have 
reposed  their  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  frequent 
elections,  and  in  their  own  power  to  remove 
their  own  servants  and  agents  whenever  they 

131 


IRepls  to  1bai2ne 

see  cause.  Thirdly,  they  have  reposed  trust 
in  the  judicial  power,  which,  in  order  that  it 
might  be  trustworthy,  they  have  made  as  re- 
spectable, as  disinterested,  and  as  independ- 
ent as  was  practicable.  Fourthly,  they  have 
seen  fit  to  rely,  in  case  of  necessity,  or  high 
expediency,  on  their  known  and  admitted  power 
to  alter  or  amend  the  constitution,  peace- 
ably and  quietly,  whenever  experience  shall 
point  out  defects  or  imperfections.  And, 
finally,  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
at  no  time,  in  no  way,  directly  or  indirectly, 
authorized  any  state  legislature  to  construe 
or  interpret  tJieir  high  instrument  of  govern- 
ment; much  less,  to  interfere,  by  their  own 
power,  to  arrest  its  course    and  operation. 

If,  sir,  the  people  in  these  respects  had 
done  otherwise  than  they  have  done,  their 
constitution  could  neither  have  been  pre- 
served, nor  would  it  have  been  worth  preserv- 
ing. And  if  its  plain  provisions  shall  now 
be  disregarded,  and  these  new  doctrines  in- 
terpolated in  it,  it  will  become  as  feeble  and 
helpless  a  being  as  its  enemies,  whether  early 
or  more  recent,  could  possibly  desire.  It  will 
exist  in  every  state,  but  as  a  poor  dependent 
on  state  permission.  It  must  borrow  leave 
lO  be,  and  will  be  no  longer  than  state  pleas- 
132 


•Replg  to  Ibagne 

ure,  or  state  discretion,  sees  fit  to  grant  the 
indulgence,  and  prolong  its  poor  existence. 

But,  sir,  although  there  are  fears,  there  are 
hopes  also.  The  people  have  preserved  this, 
their  own  chosen  constitution,  for  forty  years, 
and  have  seen  their  happiness,  prosperity, 
and  renown  grow  with  its  growth,  and 
strengthen  with  its  strength.  They  are  now, 
generally,  strongly  attached  to  it.  Over- 
thrown by  direct  assault,  it  cannot  be; 
evaded,  undermined,  nullified,  it  will  not 
be,  if  we,  and  those  who  shall  succeed  us 
here,  as  agents  and  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple, shall  conscientiously  and  vigilantly  dis- 
charge the  two  great  branches  of  our  public 
trust — faithfully  to  preserve,  and  wisely  to 
administer  it. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  thus  stated  the 
reasons  of  my  dissent  to  the  doctrines  which 
have  been  advanced  and  maintained.  I  am 
conscious  of  having  detained  you  and  the  senate 
much  too  long.  I  was  drawn  into  the  debate 
with  no  previous  deliberation,  such  as  is  suited 
to  the  discussion  of  so  grave  and  important 
a  subject.  But  it  is  a  subject  of  which  my 
heart  is  full,  and  I  have  not  been  willing  to 
suppress  the  utterance  of  its  spontaneous 
sentiments.     I  can  not,   even  now,  persuade 

133 


1Rcpli2  to  Ibasne 

myself  to  relinquish  it,  without  expressing 
once  more  my  deep  conviction,  that,  since  it 
respects  nothing  less  than  the  Union  of  the 
states,  it  is  of  most  vital  and  essential  impor- 
tance to  the  public  happiness.  I  profess,  sir, 
in  my  career  hitherto,  to  have  kept  steadily 
in  view  the  prosperity  and  honor  of  the  whole 
country,  and  the  preservation  of  our  federal 
Union.  It  is  to  that  Union  we  owe  our  safety 
at  home,  and  our  consideration  and  dignity 
abroad.  It  is  to  that  Union  that  we  are 
chiefly  indebted  for  whatever  makes  us  most 
proud  of  our  country.  That  Union  we 
reached  only  by  the  discipline  of  our  virtues 
in  the  severe  school  of  adversity.  It  had  its 
origin  in  the  necessities  of  disordered  finance, 
prostrate  commerce,  and  ruined  credit. 
Under  its  benign  influences,  these  great 
interests  immediately  awoke,  as  from  the 
dead,  and  sprang  forth  with  newness  of  life. 
Every  year  of  its  duration  has  teemed  with 
fresh  proofs  of  its  utility  and  its  blessings;  and 
although  our  territory  has  stretched  out  wider 
and  wider,  and  our  population  spread  farther 
and  farther,  they  have  not  outrun  its  protection 
or  its  benefits.  It  has  been  to  us  all  a  copious 
fountain  of  national,  social,  and  personal  hap- 
piness. 

134 


TReplis  to  Ibasnc 

I  have  not  allowed  myself,  sir,  to  look 
beyond  the  Union,  to  see  what  might  lie 
hidden  in  the  dark  recess  behind.  I  have  not 
coolly  weighed  the  chances  of  preserving  lib- 
erty when  the  bonds  that  unite  us  together 
shall  be  broken  asunder.  I  have  not  accus- 
tomed myself  to  hang  over  the  precipice  of 
disunion,  to  see  whether,  with  my  short  sighf, 
I  can  fathom  the  depth  of  the  abyss  below; 
nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe  counselor  in 
the  affairs  of  this  government,  whose  thoughts 
should  be  mainly  bent  on  considering,  not  how 
the  Union  should  be  best  preserved,  but  how 
tolerable  might  be  the  condition  of  the  people 
when  it  shall  be  broken  up  and  destroyed. 
While  the  Union  lasts,  we  have  high,  excit- 
ing, gratifying  prospects  spread  out  before  us, 
for  us  and  our  children.  Beyond  that  I  seek 
not  to  penetrate  the  veil.  God  grant  that 
in  my  day,  at  least,  that  curtain  may  not  rise! 
God  grant  that  on  my  vision  never  may  be 
opened  what  lies  behind!  When  my  eyes  shall 
be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun 
in  heaven,  may  I  not  see  him  shining  on  the 
broken  and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once 
glorious  Union;  on  states  dissevered,  dis- 
cordant, belligerent;  on  a  land  rent  with 
civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fra- 
135 


IReplB  to  Tbagnc 

ternal  blood!  Let  their  last  feeble  and  linger- 
ing glance  rather  behold  the  gorgeous  ensign 
of  the  republic,  now  known  and  honored 
throughout  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced, 
its  arms  and  trophies  streaming  in  their  original 
luster,  not  a  stripe  erased  or  polluted,  not  a 
single  star  obscured,  bearing  for  its  motto  no 
such  miserable  interrogatory  as  *  *  What  is  all 
this  worth?"  nor  those  other  words  of  delu- 
sion and  folly,  "Liberty  first  and  Union 
afterwards;  "  but  everywhere,  spread  all  over 
in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its 
ample  folds,  as  they  float  over  the  sea  and 
over  the  land,  and  in  every  wind  under  the 
whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to 
every  true  American  heart  —  Liberty  and 
Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable! 


After  Webster  had  completed  his  speech  Hayne 
rose  for  a  rejoinder  and  argued  the  constitutional 
question.  His  chief  contention  was  that  the  con- 
stitution is  a  compact  between  the  states,  that  a 
contract  between  two  with  one  only  possessing  the 
power  of  interpretation  would  mean  the  practical 
surrender  to  that  one  of  all  the  power,  therefore 
the  general  government  does  not  possess  the 
authority  to  construe  its  own  powers  —  at  least 
such  is  Webster's  statement  of  the  case.  In  reply 
Mr.  Webster  showed  the  absurdity  of  making  the 
136 


•RcplB  to  Ibaignc 

thing  created,  that  is,  the  government,  a  party  to 
the  compact  that  created  it.  Then  granting  for 
purposes  of  argument  that  the  government  is  in 
the  nature  of  a  compact  he  proceeds  to  show  that 
the  only  way  to  determine  the  powers  of  the  com- 
pact is  by  a  study  and  construction  of  its  terms. 
Then  he  finds  in  the  constitution  that  the  laws 
passed  by  Congress  in  pursuance  of  the  consti- 
tution shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  and 
that  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall 
extend  to  every  case  arising  under  the  laws  of 
congress.  This  is  conclusive  and  forever  settles 
the  unconstitutionality  of  the  doctrine  of  state 
rights. 


137 


StuMes 

Structure 

The  great  length  of  the  Reply  will  prevent  your 
making  so  close  an  outline  as  was  presented  for 
Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address,  but  you  should 
make  the  outline  full  for  the  direct  argument  by 
which  Webster  disposes  of  the  dogma  of  State 
Rights.  Note  the  personal  matters  of  the  intro- 
duction and  the  various  secondary  questions  he 
reviews  and  then  omitting  these  from  further 
consideration  reduce  to  writing  the  argument  of 
his  plea.  It  will  not  be  the  easiest  task  but  you 
will  succeed.  You  may  find  yourself  making 
several  copies  before  one  satisfies  you  perfectly 
but  that  is  no  more  than  every  person  must  do 
who  studies  under  even  the  best  personal  tuition. 

When  you  have  prepared  the  outline  and  are 
sure  you  have  all  the  points  of  the  argument, 
reduce  them  to  the  fewest  possible  words  and  then 
make  a  final  copy  in  form  like  the  one  of  the 
Gettysburg  Address  on  page  26.  This  will  enable 
you  to  see  the  whole  argument  at  a  glance  and 
will  show  you  something  of  the  way  in  which  the 
thoughts  lay  in  the  mind  of  Webster  before  he 
clothed  them  in  words. 

You  will  arrange  the  matter  of  your  outline 
under  the  three  great  headings  :  Ititroductio?i,  Dis- 
138 


StuDies 

cussion,  and  Conclusion.  The  introduction  in  the 
speech  ends  just  before  the  paragraph  beginning 
"  I  spoke,  sir,  of  the  ordinance  of  1787."  Where 
does  the  conclusion  begin  ?  How  many  distinct 
lines  of  argument  do  you  find  Webster  pursuing 
in  the  body  of  the  speech  ?  Is  the  transition  from 
one  to  another  of  these  logical  and  natural  ? 
Could  any  of  them  be  omitted  as  irrelevant  ? 
Are  you  impressed  with  the  unity,  the  oneness  of 
the  oration?  How  many  readings  are  required  for 
you  to  get  in  mind  the  full  course  of  the  argument  ? 

Thought 

As  an  oration  that  ranks  among  the  most  power- 
ful ever  delivered,  the  Reply  to  Hayne  deserves 
close  and  particular  study.  The  profound  princi- 
ples discussed  can  be  appreciated  only  through 
thorough  understanding  of  the  details  and  minor 
phases  of  the  thought.  To  get  in  all  cases 
Webster's  full  and  exact  meaning,  first  look  up  in 
a  good  dictionary  every  unfamiliar  word.  Per- 
haps the  iervci  farrago  (page  87,  line  3)  is  new  to 
you.  You  must  understand  that  it  means  a  con- 
fused mixture,  a  jumble,  in  order  to  feel  fully 
Webster's  contempt  for  the  mass  of  printed  matter 
brought  to  light  by  his  opponent.  Again,  con- 
sider the  words  vilified  (page  88,  last  line)  and 
scurrilous  (page  89,  \  i).  How  much  is  added 
to  the  context  if  one  knows,  not,  in  a  vague  way, 
that  these  terms  indicate  baseness,  but  definitely, 

139 


StuDiea 

that  vilify  means  to  make  base  in  the  sight  of  others, 
usually  as  an  unjustifiable  gratification  of  low  and 
bitter  feeling,  and  that  scurrilous  could  be  applied 
only  to  "publications"  which  are  unfair  and 
which  express  ill-feeling.  Likewise,  it  is  not 
enough  to  guess  or  know  vaguely  that  the  word 
encomium  (page  94,  ^  3)  means  praise;  it  indi- 
cates strong  commendation  and  the  reader  must 
realize  this  if  he  is  to  share  the  orator's  feeling. 
An  attempt  to  find  not  only  the  general  definition 
but  the  finer  shades  of  meaning  of  every  other 
word  not  well  understood  will  be  amply  repaid. 

Webster  in  several  cases  adds  zest  to  his  oration 
by  the  use  of  vigorous  figures  of  speech.  He 
begins,  indeed,  with  likening  the  course  of  the 
discussion  in  the  senate  to  that  of  the  mariner 
who,  driven  out  of  his  way  on  a  stormy  sea, 
seizes  his  first  opportunity  to  take  his  bearings. 
Can  you  think  of  a  more  effective  means  of  im- 
pressing the  need  of  returning  to  the  original  point 
of  the  discussion  that  the  exact  position  in  the 
debate  might  be  realized?  Notice  the  amusing 
metaphor  which  runs  through  pages  45,  46  and 
47.  What  effect  do  you  suppose  it  had  upon  the 
audience  ?  Trace  carefully  the  application  of  all 
other  figures  that  you  find.  Read  aloud  slowly 
and  carefully  the  last  paragraph  of  the  oration, 
since  it  is  filled  with  powerful   and  vivid  figures. 

The   speech  abounds  in   allusions.       Many    of 
these    references    are    explained    in    the    notes. 
140 


StuOfcs 

Satisfy  yourself  of  the  meaning  of  all  others 
before  you  leave  your  study  of  the  speech.  Get 
clearly  in  mind  the  meaning  of  State  Sovereignty 
and  Nullification  and  the  attitude  of  both  South 
Carolina  and  New  England  toward  the  public 
lands  discussion  and  the  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution. 

Sometimes  single  sentences  demand  particular 
notice  because  of  peculiar  meaning  and  force.  For 
example,  on  page  76,  the  meaning  of  the  sentence, 
"The  harvest  of  neutrality  was  great  but  we  have 
gathered  it  all,"  may  not  be  at  once  evident.  It 
may  require  particular  consideration  to  bring  out 
the  idea  that  while  the  nations  of  Europe  were  at 
war,  American  ships  sailing  under  a  neutral  flag 
reaped  great  advantages  from  trade,  but  such  a 
condition  is  now  past.  Again  on  page  80,  line  4, 
the  sentence,  ''The  tariff  of  1S16  —  South  Caro- 
lina votes,"  calls  for  especial  attention.  Note 
the  effect  of  the  use  of  one  of  the  enemy's  own 
weapone.  Sentences  like  these  cannot  be  slighted 
if  a  clear  understanding  of  the  essay  in  its  entirety 
is  to  be  gained. 

Read  the  paragraph  on  page  68,  which  begins, 
"  Sir,  we  narrow-minded  people"  and  the  follow- 
ing paragraph,  "  Sir,  I  do  not  desire"  with  suffi- 
cient care  to  get  the  thought  completely.  Then 
reproduce  these  paragraphs,  explaining  fully 
Webster's  attitude  and  the  allusions  he  makes. 
In  similar  manner  treat  the  third  paragraph  on 
141 


studies 

page  99,  beginning    ''This  leads  us,"  and  other 
paragraphs  that  seem  of  marked  importance. 

Was  the  subject  of  the  public  lands  the  really 
important  issue  in  Webster's  speech  ?  If  not, 
what  was  the  vital  matter  of  controversy  ?  Does 
the  orator,  in  general,  keep  closely  to  his  subject  ? 
Has  Webster  a  well-developed  sense  of  humor? 
How  does  the  spirit  shown  by  him  compare  with 
that  of  his  opponents  ?  How  far  do  Webster's 
earnest  personal  conviction  and  enthusiasm  make 
themselves  felt  ? 

Style 

Simplicity,  vigor  and  directness  characterize 
the  Gettysburg  address.  Do  you  find  the  same 
qualities  in  the  Reply  to  Hayne  ?  If  not,  how 
does  the  oratory  of  Lincoln  differ  from  that  of  Web- 
ster? What  would  you  say  are  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  Webster's  style  ?  Do  you  think 
that  it  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  his  subject  ?  In 
your  opinion,  is  the  critic  justified  who  says  that 
"Seldom,  in  the  world  of  letters,  do  we  find  such 
another  heaven-scaling  crag,  with  its  feet  in  the 
deep  sea,  as  Webster  "  ? 


142 


Ipart  Six 

Oration0 

(ContfnucO) 


Je^mun^  Burlfte 


E^mun^  JSurftc 

1729-1797 

The  time  when  America  was  waging  her  war  for 
independence  was  a  stirring  time  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  Great  Britain  had  through  her  officials 
devastated  India,  Ireland  was  in  a  state  of  up- 
heaval, and  the  French  were  on  the  eve  of  their 
bloodiest  revolution.  It  was  a  time  when  the 
world  needed  great  men  and  a  time  when  the 
stimulus  of  events  was  certain  to  produce  greatness 
in  men.  Edmund  Burke  was  one  of  the  leaders 
of  the  time,  a  man  as  fearless  as  he  was  eloquent 
in  debate,  and  as  wise  and  far-sighted  in  his  policy 
as  he  was  startling  and  effective  in  his  defense  of 
it.  The  colonies  had  no  wiser  nor  more  faithful 
friend  and  no  friend  who  was  more  earnestly  their 
champion.  From  the  time  when  Burke  made  his 
first  ringing  speech  on  the  Stamp  Act  till  the  last 
days  of  his  life  he  was  consistently  the  advocate 
of  justice  and  freedom. 

He  was  born  in  Dublin,  and  was  one  of  the  fif- 
teen children  of  an  Irish  lawyer  who  desired  this 
son  to  follow  the  same  profession.  Accordingly 
he  was  carefully  educated  in  preparation  for  col- 
lege and  finally  graduated  from  Trinity,  Dublin, 
in  1748.  Here  he  distinguished  himself  in  no 
special  way  except  for  his  erratic  and  somewhat 
tempestuous  nature  and  for  the  enthusiasm  with 

147 


£dmunO  :fl3urfte 

which  he  read, — absorbed  at  one  time  in  one  study 
and  then  entering  with  equal  ardor  in  some  other 
branch,  but  never  permanently  excellent  in  any- 
thing unless  it  was  in  Latin. 

Upon  graduation  he  was  sent  by  his  father  to  Lon- 
don to  study  law  but  at  the  end  of  four  years  Ed- 
mund, then  about  twenty-five  years  of  age,  aban- 
doned the  profession  and  resolved  to  devote  himself 
to  literature.  This  act  so  exasperated  his  father  that 
he  withdrew  his  support  and  the  young  man  was 
left  dependent  entirely  upon  his  own  resources. 
The  keenness  of  his  intellect  and  the  brilliancy  of 
his  powers  of  expression  should  have  made  him  fa- 
mous and  wealthy  but  he  was  never  successful  in  the 
conduct  of  his  own  affairs.  While  his  prominence 
brought  him  a  good  income  his  extravagance  and 
poor  management  left  him  heavily  in  debt  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  admiring  friends  came  fre- 
quently to  his  rescue,  advancing  large  sums  of 
money  and  cancelling  heavy  obligations  to  them- 
selves. He  purchased  a  large  estate  hoping  to 
found  an  enduring  house  but  the  death  of  his  son 
destroyed  his  hope  of  the  peerage  and  the  increas- 
ing burden  of  his  debts  finally  drove  him  from 
public  life.  For  the  three  years  preceding  his 
death  he  devoted  himself  faithfully  to  literary 
labors  in  the  vain  hope  of  retrieving  his  fallen 
fortunes.  Lord  Buckingham  in  his  v/ill  finally 
freed  Burke's  estate  and  ordered  the  destruction  of 
all  evidences  of  the  latter's  indebtedness. 
148 


Burke  was  for  several  years  an  assistant  to  the 
secretary  for  Ireland  but  it  was  as  member  of 
parliament  from  Wendover  that  he  achieved  his 
greatest  forensic  triumphs.  Morley  says: "Burke 
is  entitled  to  our  lasting  reverence  as  the  first 
apostle  and  great  upholder  of  integrity,  mercy, 
and  honor  in  the  relation  between  his  countrymen 
and  their  humble  dependents."  And  it  is  in  this 
capacity  that  we  see  him  acting.  His  activity 
and  powerful  speech  in  the  impeachment  trial  of 
Warren  Hastings,  February,  1788,  carried  Great 
Britain  by  storm.  India  and  her  wrongs  were 
made  the  subject  of  the  most  soul-stirring  appeals, 
and  the  ruthless  tyranny  by  which  she  had  been 
crushed  was  exposed  with  so  furious  a  zeal  and 
such  impassioned  invective  that  the  listening  mul- 
titude, spectators,  advocates,  judges,  and  even  the 
great  criminal  himself,  were  spellbound  in  anxiety 
and  terror.  It  was  the  greatest  triumph  of  classic 
oratory  known  to  modern  times.  Burke  failed  to 
secure  the  conviction  of  Hastings  but  he  obtained 
justice  for  India  and  established  mercy  and  mod- 
eration for  the  colonists. 

He  was  a  man  of  wonderful  resources  and  deep 
learning.  "  I  have  learned  more  from  him,"  said 
Fox,  "than  from  all  the  books  I  ever  read." 
"  Take  up  whatever  topic  you  please  he  is  ready 
to  meet  you,"  was  Dr.  Johnson's  testimony  to  his 
wide  culture. 

To  the  electors  of  Bristol  he  once  gave  this 
149 


JEDmunD  asurhe 

manly  account  of  his  action  in  Parliament.  Ob- 
jections had  been  made  to  his  conduct  and  after 
meeting  and  answering  them  he  continued:  "  I  do 
not  stand  before  you  accused  of  venality  or  neg- 
lect of  duty.  It  is  not  said  that  in  the  long  period 
of  my  service  I  have  in  a  single  instance  sacrificed 
the  slightest  of  interests  to  my  ambition  or  to  my 
future.  It  is  not  alleged  that  to  gratify  any  anger 
or  revenge  of  my  own  or  of  my  party  I  have  had  a 
share  in  wronging  or  oppressing  any  description 
of  men.  No!  The  charges  against  me  are  all  of 
one  kind:  that  I  have  pushed  the  principles  of 
general  justice  and  benevolence  too  far  —  further 
than  a  cautious  policy  would  warrant  and  further 
than  the  opinions  of  many  would  go  along  with 
me.  In  every  accident  which  may  happen  through 
life,  in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in  depression  and  distress 
I  will  call  to  mind  this  accusation  and  be  com- 
forted." 


I  think  it  was  on  going  home  from  the  club  one 
night  that  Edmund  Burke,  his  soul  full  of  great 
thoughts,  be  sure,  for  they  never  left  him,  his 
heart  full  of  gentleness,  was  accosted  by  a  poor, 
wandering  woman  to  whom  he  spoke  words  of 
kindness;  and,  moved  by  her  tears,  perhaps  having 
caused  them  by  his  own  words,  he  took  her  home 
to  the  house  of  his  wife  and  children,  and  never 
left  her  until  he  had  found  the  means  of  restoring 

150 


jBDmunO  JSurlie 

Tier  to  honesty  and  labor.  O  you  fine  gentlemen, 
you  Marches  and  Selwyns  and  Chesterfields,  how 
small    you  look   by  the    side  of   this  great   man! 

—  Thackeray. 

Burke  will  always  be  read  with  delight  and  edi- 
fication, because  in  the  midst  of  discussions  on  the 
local  and  the  accidental,  he  scatters  apothegms 
that  take  us  into  the  regions  of  lasting  wisdom. 
In  the  midst  of  the  torrent  of  his  most  strenuous 
and  passionate  deliverances,  he  suddenly  rises 
aloof  from  his  immediate  subject,  and  in  all  tran- 
quillity reminds  us  of  some  permanent  relation  of 
things,  some  enduring  truth  of  human  life  or 
society.  We  do  not  hear  the  organ  tones  of  Mil- 
ton, for  faith  and  freedom  had  other  notes  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  There  is  none  of  the  com- 
placent and  wise-browed  sagacity  of  Bacon,  for 
Burke's  were  days  of  eager  personal  strife  and 
party  fire  and  civil  division.  We  are  not  exhil- 
arated by  the  cheerfulness,  the  polish,  the  fine 
manners  of  Bolingbroke,  for  Burke  had  an  anx- 
ious conscience  and  was  earnest  and  intent  that 
the  good  should  triumph.  And  yet  Burke  is 
among  the  greatest  of  those  who  have  wrought 
marvels  in  the  prose  of  our  English  tongue. 

—  Morley. 

Unlike  Hume,  whose  politics  were  elaborated 
in  the  study,  Burke  wrote  his  political  tracts  and 
speeches  face  to  face  with  events,  and  upon  them. 

151 


:60mun&  JBurfte 

Philosophical  reasoning  and  poetic  passion  were 
wedded  together  in  them  on  the  side  of  conserva- 
tism, and  every  art  of  eloquence  was  used  with 
the  mastery  that  imagination  gives. —  Rev.  Stop- 
ford  Brooke. 

There  are  two  of  Burke's  speeches  that  are  in- 
timately related  —  the  one  on  American  Taxation 
and  the  one  On  Conciliation  with  Atnerica. 
Add  to  these  the  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol, 
and  to  quote  Mr,  John  Morley,  "  It  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  they  compose  the  most  perfect 
manual  in  our  literature,  or  in  any  literature,  for 
one  who  approaches  the  study  of  public  affairs, 
whether  for  knowledge  or  for  practice.  They  are 
an  example  without  fault  of  all  the  qualities  which 
the  critic,  whether  a  theorist  or  an  actor,  of  great 
political  situations  should  strive  by  night  and  by 
day  to  possess.  ...  If  ever,  in  the  fullness  of 
time, — and  surely  the  fates  of  men  and  literature 
cannot  have  it  otherwise, —  Burke  becomes  one  of 
the  half-dozen  names  of  established  and  universal 
currency  in  education  and  in  common  books,  ris- 
ing above  the  waywardness  of  literary  caprice  or 
intellectual  fashions,  as  Shakespeare  and  Milton 
and  Bacon  rise  above  it,  it  will  be  the  mastery, 
the  elevation,  the  wisdom  of  these  far-shining  dis- 
courses, in  which  the  world  will,  in  an  especial 
degree,  recognize  the  combination  of  sovereign 
gifts  with  benificent  uses." 
152 


BOmunD  JBurfte 

The  importance  of  the  occasion  and  the  far- 
reaching  consequences  of  the  debates  in  which  the 
two  speeches  had  their  origin  cannot  be  over-esti- 
mated. The  writer  quoted  above  says  in  another 
place,  "The  defeat  and  subjugation  of  the  colo- 
nists would  have  been  followed  by  the  final  anni- 
hilation of  the  Opposition  in  the  mother  country. 
The  War  of  Independence  was  virtually  a  second 
English  Civil  War.  The  ruin  of  the  American 
cause  would  have  been  also  the  ruin  of  the  consti- 
tutional cause  in  England;  and  a  patriotic  Eng- 
lishman may  revere  the  memory  of  Patrick  Henry 
and  George  Washington  as  justly  as  the  patriotic 
American.  Burke's  attitude  in  this  great  contest 
is  that  part  of  his  history  about  the  majestic  and 
noble  wisdom  of  which  there  can  be  least  dispute." 

If  the  great  orator  did  not  succeed  in  averting 
the  war,  if  a  headstrong  and  violent  ministry  had 
so  far  forced  their  oppressive  measures  upon  the 
colonists  as  to  make  war  inevitable,  yet  the  elo- 
quence of  Burke  and  his  noble  allies  made  the 
war  unpopular  with  great  numbers  of  the  loyal 
people  of  Great  Britain,  paved  the  way  for  the 
final  success  of  American  arms,  and  made  possi- 
ble the  ultimate  conciliation  of  the  independent 
nation  with  Great  Britain. 

In  the  first  speech  Burke  endeavored  to  bring 
the  policy  of  the  government  back  to  its  original 
method  of  dealing  with  the  colonies,  that  of  leav- 
ing them  free  and  independent  in  the  control  of 

153 


BOmunO  asurfte 

their  local  affairs  and  merely  regulating  their  com- 
merce. He  spoke  from  the  English  standpoint 
and  criticised  vehemently  the  vacillating  and  fool- 
ish policy  of  the  ministry.  The  speech  was  keen 
and  sarcastic  and  its  prime  purpose  was  to  over- 
throw Lord  North  and  his  cabinet.  This  speech 
was  delivered  in  1774. 

A  little  less  than  a  year  later,  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  March,  1775,  the  second  speech  was 
made.  Here  his  attitude  was  entirely  different. 
No  longer  attacking  the  ministry,  he  attempted, 
by  showing  the  condition  and  future  possibilities 
of  the  American  colonies,  to  placate  their  enemies 
and  secure  for  them  such  substantial  justice  as 
would  please  and  satisfy  them  and  at  the  same 
time  bring  valuable  and  willing  friends  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  mother  country.  Professor  Goodrich, 
of  Yale,  considers  it  '*  the  most  finished  of  Burke's 
speeches,"  and  Fox,  twenty  years  after  the  speech 
was  delivered,  gave  it  this  encomium  : 

"Let  gentlemen  read  this  speech  by  day,  and 
meditate  on  it  by  night;  let  them  peruse  it  again 
and  again,  study  it,  imprint  it  on  their  minds,  im- 
press it  on  their  hearts;  they  will  then  learn  that 
representation  is  the  sovereign  remedy  for  every 
evil." 

"Yet  Erskine,  who  was  in  the  House  when  this 
was  delivered,  said  that  it  drove  everybody  away, 
including  people  who,  when  they  came  to  read  it, 
read   it  over  and  over  again,   and  could  hardly 

154 


jEDmunO  ffiurfte 

think  of  anything  else.  Burke's  gestures  were 
clumsy;  he  had  sonorous  but  harsh  tones;  he 
never  lost  a  strong  Irish  accent;  and  his  utterance 
was  often  hurried  and  eager.  Apart  from  these 
disadvantages  of  accident,  which  have  been  over- 
come by  men  infinitely  inferior  to  Burke,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive,  from  the  matter  and  texture  of  the 
speeches  that  have  become  English  classics,  that 
the  very  qualities  which  are  excellencies  in  litera- 
ture were  drawbacks  to  the    spoken   discourses." 

— Morley. 


George  III  became  king  in  1760.  By  nature 
he  was  obstinate  and  self-willed  and  throughout 
his  boyhood  and  early  life  he  listened  to  the 
teachings  of  his  mother,  whose  one  idea  was  to 
establish  an  absolute  monarchy,  with  him  as  its 
ruler.  These  teachings  produced  their  natural 
effect  and  no  sooner  had  George  ascended  the 
throne,  than  he  began  a  struggle  with  Parliament, 
in  which  his  persistent  and  unscrupulous  char- 
acter enabled  him  to  win. 

The  first  step  in  the  king's  policy  was  to  form 
for  himself  a  supporting  party  among  the  Tory 
nobles,  who  had  been  the  followers  of  the  Stuarts. 
He  took  advantage  also  of  the  dissensions  which 
were  dividing  the  Whig  party,  many  of  whom  had 
been  under  the  leadership  of  Walpole,  favoring 
peace  abroad  and  at  home,  and  others  of  the 
younger  branch  wishing  to  assist    in  the  conti- 

^55 


nental  struggles  which  were  then  under  way.  The 
history  of  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
American  Pvevolution,  is  the  history  of  the  strug- 
gle between  the  king,  these  factions  among  the 
ruling  classes,  and  the  growing  discontent  among 
the  English  people,  who  for  almost  the  first  time 
in  their  history,  looked  with  contempt  upon  Par- 
liament. And  for  this  contempt  there  was  good 
reason.  Never  was  there  a  more  corrupt  group 
of  men  than  those  who  formed  the  House  of 
Commons.  They  obtained  their  seats  by  pur- 
chase and  sold  their  votes  to  the  highest  bidder. 
This  was  usually  the  king.  He  purchased  the 
votes  not  only  of  the  members  of  Parliament, 
but  sent  his  agents  into  the  country  and  actually 
bought  the  election  of  his  favorites  in  the  different 
boroughs.  By  these  means  he  obtained  a  control 
which  was  almost  absolute  and  when  Lord  North 
was  chosen  Prime  Minister  he  was  but  a  cloak 
for  George  IH  who  formulated  his  policy  and 
directed  his  actions.  All  this  had  not  taken  place 
without  the  notice  of  the  great  body  of  the  Eng- 
lish people,  whose  outraged  dignity  found  vent  in 
constant  turmoil  and  opposition.  In  some  locali- 
ties members  were  repeatedly  returned  against  the 
wishes  of  the  king,  but  they  were  so  few  in  num- 
ber that  their  votes  counted  as  nothing,  against 
those  owned  by  the  king. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  public  journalism  came 
first  to  be  an  important  factor  in  English  politics. 

iS6 


jEDmunD  asurfce 

The  proceedings  of  Parliament  had  not  been  pub- 
lished previously,  but  after  violent  opposition  ex- 
tending over  several  years,  the  recently  established 
newspapers,  aided  by  the  growing  public  senti- 
ment, succeeded  in  obtaining  full  reports  of  the 
proceedings.  This  opened  the  way  for  that  pub- 
licity which  eventually  brought  the  House  of 
Commons  back  to  its  original  position  as  the 
direct  representative  of  the  people  and  cleansed  it 
from  its  taint  of  bribery.  But  when  Burke  spoke 
the  power  of  the  king  was  at  its  height  and  it  was 
inevitable  that  the  plan  for  conciliation  should 
fail. 

The  condition  of  things  in  the  colonies  is  famil- 
iar to  us.  The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  might 
have  proved  a  pacificatory  measure,  had  not  its 
significance  been  entirely  destroyed  by  a  declara- 
tion that  Great  Britain  still  had  a  right  to  tax  the 
colonies.  In  1767,  a  new  tax  levied  caused  so 
much  agitation  that  Parliament  decided  to  remove 
all  impositions  except  that  upon  tea,  this  being 
retained  in  order  to  reserve  the  right.  The  colo- 
nists received  this  law  in  derision;  in  Boston  the 
tea  was  thrown  into  the  harbor  by  patriots  dis- 
guised as  Indians  and  elsewhere  it  was  not  per- 
mitted to  land  or  was  stored  in  damp  cellars  and 
left  to  rot  in  disuse. 

This  roused  the  animosity  of  the  king  and  at 
his  instigation  a  bill  was  passed  closing  the  port 
of  Boston,  and  General  Gage  was  sent  to  Massa- 

157 


J6&munD  SJurhe 

chusetts  to  enforce  submission.  In  addition  to 
this  a  law  was  passed  requiring  all  persons  under 
indictment  for  criminal  offenses  to  be  sent  to 
England  for  trial,  the  quartering  of  troops  on 
citizens  of  Boston  was  authorized,  and  laws 
were  passed  tending  to  restrict  the  extension  of 
colonial  territory. 

Meanwhile  the  colonies  were  far  from  idle. 
Oppression  had  brought  unity  of  feeling  among 
them  and  in  September,  1774,  a  general  congress 
convened  at  Philadelphia.  War  seemed  certain 
and  the  colonists  prepared  to  meet  the  move- 
ments of  the  troops  sent  against  them.  Franklin, 
who  had  been  in  England  for  some  time  as  am- 
bassador, recognized  the  impossibility  of  accom- 
plishing anything  and  .sailed  for  America  on  the 
very  day  that  Burke  made  his  plea  for  peace. 
War  was  on  and  in  less  than  a  month  British  sol- 
diers had  fallen  at  Concord  Bridge. 


158 


on  Conciliation  witb  Hmerica 


EDMUND   BURKE 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Hmerlca 


HOUSE   OF   COMMONS,    MARCH    22,    1 775- 

I  HOPE,  Sir,  that  notwithstanding  the  auster- 
ity of  the  Chair,  your  good  nature  will  incline 
you  to  some  degree  of  indulgence  towards 
human  frailty.  You  will  not  think  it  unnatural 
that  those  who  have  an  object  depending, 
which  strongly  engages  their  hopes  and  fears, 
should  be  somewhat  inclined  to  superstition. 
As  I  came  into  the  House  full  of  anxiety 
about  the  event  of  my  motion,  I  found,  to  my 
infinite  surprise,  that  the  grand  penal  bill,  by 
which  we  had  passed  sentence  on  the  trade 
and  sustenance  of  America,  is  to  be  returned 
to  us  from  the  other  House.  ^  I  do  confess  I 
could  not  help  looking  on  this  event  as  a  for- 
tunate omen.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  sort  of 
providential  favor,  by  which  we  are  put  once 
more  in  possession  of  our  deliberative  capacity 
upon  a  business  so  very  questionable  in  its 
nature,  so  very  uncertain  in  its  issue.     By  the 


I.  This  was  the  bill  which  proposed  to  restrict  the  commerce  of  the 
colonies  and  to  prohibit  fishing  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland  under 
certain  coaditions.    Its  enforcement  would  mean  beggary  to  thousands. 

i6i 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmetfca 

return  of  this  bill,  which  seemed  to  have 
taken  its  flight  forever,  we  are  at  this  very 
instant  nearly  as  free  to  choose  a  plan  for  our 
American  Government  as  we  were  on  the  first 
day  of  the  session.  If,  Sir,  we  incline  to  the 
side  of  conciliation,  we  are  not  at  all  embar- 
rassed (unless  we  please  to  make  ourselves  so) 
by  any  incongruous  mixture  of  coercion  and 
restraint.  We  are  therefore  called  upon,  as 
it  were  by  a  superior  warning  voice,  again  to 
attend  to  America;  to  attend  to  the  whole  of 
it  together;  and  to  review  the  subject  with 
an  unusual  degree  of  care  and  calmness. 

Surely  it  is  an  awful  subject,  or  there  is 
none  so  on  this  side  of  the  grave.  When  I 
first  had  the  honor  of  a  seat  in  this  House,  the 
affairs  of  that  continent  pressed  themselves 
upon  us  as  the  most  important  and  most  deli- 
cate object  of  Parliamentary  attention.  My 
little  share  in  this  great  deliberation  oppressed 
me.^  I  found  myself  a  partaker  in  a  very  high 
trust;  and,  having  no  sort  of  reason  to  rely 
on  the  strength  of  my  natural  abilities  for  the 
proper  execution  of  that  trust,  I  was  obliged 
to  take  more  than  common  pains  to  instruct 
myself   in    everything   which    relates   to    our 


2.  In  176s,  Burke  represented  Wendover,  and  his  maiden  speech  was 
for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 

162 


®n  Concflfatfon  wltb  Bmecfca 

Colonies.  I  was  not  less  under  the  necessity 
of  forming  some  fixed  ideas  concerning  the 
general  policy  of  the  British  Empire.  Some- 
thing of  this  sort  seemed  to  be  indispensable, 
in  order,  amidst  so  vast  a  fluctuation  of  pas- 
sions and  opinions,  to  concenter  my  thoughts, 
to  ballast  my  conduct,  to  preserve  me  frofn 
being  blown  about  by  every  wind  of  fashion- 
able doctrine.  I  really  did  not  think  it  safe  or 
manly  to  have  fresh  principles  to  seek  upon 
every  fresh  mail  which  should  arrive  from 
America. 

At  that  period  I  had  the  fortune  to  find 
m}4self  in  perfect  concurrence  with  a  large 
majority  in  this  House.'  Bowing  under  that 
high  authority,  and  penetrated  with  the  sharp- 
ness and  strength  of  that  early  impression,  I 
have  continued  ever  since,  without  the  least 
deviation,  in  my  original  sentiments.  Whether 
this  be  owing  to  an  obstinate  perseverance  in 
error,  or  to  a  religious  adherence  to  what  ap- 
pears to  me  truth  and  reason,  it  is  in  your 
equity  to  judge. 

Sir,  Parliament,  having  an  enlarged  view  of 
objects,  made,  during  this  interval,*  more  fre- 
quent changes  in  their  sentiments  and  their 


3.  The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 

4.  December,  1765,  to  March,  177S. 

163 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmcrlca 

conduct  than  could  be  justified  in  a  particular 
person  upon  the  contracted  seale  of  private 
information.  But  though  I  do  not  hazard 
anything  approaching  to  a  censure  on  the 
motives  of  former  Parliaments  to  all  those 
alterations,  one  fact  is  undoubted  —  that  under 
them  the  state  of  America  has  been  kept  in 
continual  agitation.  Everything  adminis- 
tered as  remedy  to  the  public  complaint,  if  it 
did  not  produce,  was  at  least  followed  by,  an 
heightening  of  the  distemper;  until,  by  a 
variety  of  experiments,  that  important  country 
has  been  brought  into  her  present  situation  — 
a  situation  I  will  not  miscall,  which  I  dare  not 
name,  which  I  scarcely  know  how  to  compre- 
hend in  the  terms  of  any  description. 

In  this  posture.  Sir,  things  stood  at  the 
beginning  of  the  session.  About  that  time,  a 
worthy  member  of  great  Parliamentary  ex- 
perience,^ who,  in  the  year  1766,  filled  the 
chair  of  the  American  committee  with  much 
ability,  took  me  aside;  and,  lamenting  the 
present  aspect  of  our  politics,  told  me  things 
were  come  to  such  a  pass  that  our  former 
methods  of  proceeding  in  the  House  would  be 
no  longer  tolerated:  that  the  public  tribunal 
(never  too  indulgent  to  a  long  and  unsuccess- 

S.  Mr.  Rose  Fuller. 

164 


®n  Concdlatfon  wltb  amerfca 

ful  opposition)  would  now  scrutinize  our 
conduct  with  unusual  severity:  that  the  very 
vicissitudes  and  shiftings  of  ministerial  meas- 
ures, instead  of  convicting  their  authors  of 
inconstancy  and  want  of  system,  would  be 
taken  as  an  occasion  of  charging  us  with 
a  predetermined  discontent,  which  nothing 
could  satisfy;  whilst  we  accused  every  measure 
of  vigor  as  cruel,  and  every  proposal  of  lenity 
as  weak  and  irresolute.  The  public,  he  said, 
would  not  have  patience  to  see  us  play  the 
game  out  with  our  adversaries;  we  must  pro- 
duce our  hand.  It  would  be  expected  that 
those  who  for  many  years  had  been  active  in 
such  affairs  should  show  that  they  had  formed 
some  clear  and  decided  idea  of  the  principles 
of  Colony  government;  and  were  capable  of 
drawing  out  something  like  a  platform  of  the 
ground  which  might  be  laid  for  future  and 
permanent  tranquillity. 

I  felt  the  truth  of  what  my  honorable  friend 
represented;  but  I  felt  my  situation  too.  His 
application  might  have  been  made  with  far 
greater  propriety  to  many  other  gentlemen. 
No  man  was  indeed  ever  better  disposed,  or 
worse  qualified,  for  such  an  undertaking  than 
myself.  Though  I  gave  so  far  in  to  his  opinion 
that  I  immediately  threw  my  thoughts  into 
165 


®n  Conciliatfon  wltb  Bmerlca 

a  sort  of  Parliamentary  form,  I  was  by  no 
means  equally  ready  to  produce  them.  It  gen- 
erally argues  some  degree  of  natural  impotence 
of  mind,  or  some  want  of  knowledge  of  the 
world,  to  hazard  plans  of  government  except 
from  a  seat  of  authority.  Propositions  are 
made,  not  only  ineffectually,  but  somewhat 
disreputably,  when  the  minds  of  men  are  not 
properly  disposed  for  their  reception;  and,  for 
my  part,  I  am  not  ambitious  of  ridicule  —  not 
absolutely  a  candidate  for  disgrace. 

Besides,  Sir,  to  speak  the  plain  truth,  I 
have  in  general  no  very  exalted  opinion  of 
the  virtue  of  paper  government;  nor  of  any 
politics  in  which  the  plan  is  to  be  wholly  sep- 
arated from  the  execution.  But  when  I  saw 
that  anger  and  violence  prevailed  every  day 
more  and  more,  and  that  things  were  hasten- 
ing towards  an  incurable  alienation  of  our 
Colonies,  I  confess  my  caution  gave  way.  I 
felt  this  as  one  of  those  few  moments  in 
which  decorum  yields  to  a  higher  duty.  Pub- 
lic calamity  is  a  mighty  leveler;  and  there  are 
occasions  when  any,  even  the  slightest,  chance 
of  doing  good  must  be  laid  hold  on,  even  by 
the  most  inconsiderable  person. 

To  restore  order  and  repose  to  an  empire 
so  great  and  so  distracted  as  ours,  is,  merely 
x66 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Hmerfca 

in  the  attempt,  an  undertaking  that  would 
ennoble  the  flights  of  the  highest  genius,  and 
obtain  pardon  for  the  efforts  of  the  meanest 
understanding.  Struggling  a  good  while  with 
these  thoughts,  by  degrees  I  felt  myself  more 
firm.  I  derived,  at  length,  some  confidence 
from  what  in  other  circumstances  usually  pro- 
duces timidity.  I  grew  less  anxious,  even 
from  the  idea  of  my  own  insignificance.  For, 
judging  of  what  you  are  by  what  you  ought 
to  be,  I  persuaded  myself  that  you  would  not 
reject  a  reasonable  proposition  because  it  had 
nothing  but  its  reason  to  recommend  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  being  totally  destitute  of  all 
shadow  of  influence,  natural  or  adventitious, 
I  was  very  sure  that,  if  my  proposition  were 
futile  or  dangerous — if  it  were  weakly  con- 
ceived, or  improperly  timed  —  there  was 
nothing  exterior  to  it  of  power  to  awe,  dazzle, 
or  delude  you.  You  will  see  it  just  as  it  is; 
and  you  will  treat  it  just  as  it  deserves. 

The  proposition  is  peace.  Not  peace 
through  the  medium  of  war;  not  peace  to  be 
hunted  through  the  labyrinth  of  intricate  and 
endless  negotiations;  not  peace  to  arise  out 
of  universal  discord  fomented,  from  principle, 
in  all  parts  of  the  Empire;  not  peace  to  de- 
pend on  the  juridical  determination  of  per- 
167 


®n  ConcfUation  witb  Bmerfca 

plexing  questions,  or  the  precise  marking  the 
shadowy  boundaries  of  a  complex  government. 
It  is  simple  peace;  sought  in  its  natural  course, 
and  in  its  ordinary  haunts.  It  is  peace  sought 
in  the  spirit  of  peace,  and  laid  in  principles 
purely  specific.  I  propose,  by  removing  the 
ground  of  the  difference,  and  by  restoring  the 
former  unsuspecting  confidence  of  the  Colonies 
in  the  Mother  Country,  to  give  permanent 
satisfaction  to  your  people;  and  (far  from  a 
scheme  of  ruling  by  discord)  to  reconcile  them 
to  each  other  in  the  same  act  and  by  the  bond 
of  the  very  same  interest  which  reconciles 
them  to  British  government. 

My  idea  is  nothing  more.  Refined  policy 
ever  has  been  the  parent  of  confusion;  and 
ever  will  be  so,  as  long  as  the  world  endures. 
Plain  good  intention,  which  is  as  easily  dis- 
covered at  the  first  view  as  fraud  is  surely 
detected  at  last,  is,  let  me  say,  of  no  mean 
force  in  the  government  of  mankind.  Genuine 
simplicity  of  heart  is  an  healing  and  cement- 
ing principle.  My  plan,  therefore,  being 
formed  upon  the  most  simple  grounds  imag- 
inable, may  disappoint  some  people  when  they 
hear  it.  It  has  nothing  to  recommend  it  to 
the  pruriency  of  curious  ears.  There  is  noth- 
ing at  all  new  and  captivating  in  it.     It  has 

1 68 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Hmerlca 

nothing  of  the  splendor  of  the  project  which 
has  been  lately  laid  upon  your  table  by  the 
noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon.^  It  does  not  pro- 
pose to  fill  your  lobby  with  squabbling  Colony 
agents,  who  will  require  the  interposition  of 
your  mace,  at  every  instant,  to  keep  the  peace 
amongst  them.  It  does  not  institute  a  magnifi- 
cent auction  of  finance,  where  captivated 
provinces  come  to  general  ransom  by  bidding 
against  each  other,  until  you  knock  down  the 
hammer,  and  determine  a  proportion  of  pay- 
ment beyond  all  the  powers  of  algebra  to 
equalize  and  settle. 

The  plan  which  I  shall  presume  to  suggest 
derives,  however,  one  great  advantage  from 
the  proposition  and  registry  of  that  noble 
lord's  project.  The  idea  of  conciliation  is 
admissible.  First,  the  House,  in  accepting 
the  resolution  moved  by  the  noble  lord,  has 
admitted,  notwithstanding  the  menacing  front 
of  our  address, 7  notwithstanding  our  heavy 
bills  of  pains  and  penalties  —  that  we  do  not 
think  ourselves  precluded  from  all  ideas  of 
free  grace  and  bounty. 

6.  Lord  North,  tlie  Prime  Minister,  wore  the  badge  of  a  Knight  of 
the  Garter.  His  measure  passed  Febiuary  27,  1775,  was  the  one  which 
agreed  to  forbear  to  tax  any  Colony  which  should  propose  to  contribute 
its  proportion  to  the  common  defense. 

7.  An  address  to  the  king  which  declared  that  Massachusetts  was  In 
rebellion  urged  his  majesty  to  act  at  once. 

169 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

The  House  has  gone  farther;  it  has  declared 
conciHation  admissible,  previous  to  any  sub- 
mission on  the  part  of  America.  It  has  even 
shot  a  good  deal  beyond  that  mark,  and  has 
admitted  that  the  complaints  of  our  former 
mode  of  exerting  the  right  of  taxation  were 
not  wholly  unfounded.  That  right  thus  ex- 
erted is  allowed  to  have  something  reprehen- 
sible in  it,  something  unwise,  or  something 
grievous;  since,  in  the  midst  of  our  heat  and 
resentment,  we,  of  ourselves,  have  proposed 
a  capital  alteration;  and  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
what  seemed  so  very  exceptionable,  have  in- 
stituted a  mode  that  is  altogether  new;  one 
that  is,  indeed,  wholly  alien  from  all  the 
ancient  methods  and  forms  of  Parliament. 

The  principle  of  this  proceeding  is  large 
enough  for  my  purpose.  The  means  proposed 
by  the  noble  lord  for  carrying  his  ideas  into 
execution,  I  think,  indeed,  are  very  indiffer- 
ently suited  to  the  end;  and  this  I  shall  en- 
deavor to  show  you  before  I  sit  down.  But, 
for  the  present,  I  take  my  ground  on  the 
admitted  principle.  I  mean  to  give  peace. 
Peace  implies  reconciliation;  and  where  there 
has  been  a  material  dispute,  reconciliation 
does  in  a  manner  always  imply  concession  on 
the  one  part  or  on  the  other.  In  this  state  of 
170 


®n  Concillatton  witb  Bmecica 

things  I  make  no  difficulty  in  affirming  that  the 
proposal  ought  to  originate  from  us.  Great 
and  acknowledged  force  is  not  impaired,  either 
in  effect  or  in  opinion,  by  an  unwillingness 
to  exert  itself.  The  superior  power  may  offer 
peace  with  honor  and  with  safety.  Such  an 
offer  from  such  a  power  will  be  attributed  to 
magnanimity.  But  the  concessions  of  the 
weak  are  the  concessions  of  fear.  When  such 
a  one  is  disarmed,  he  is  wholly  at  the  mercy 
of  his  superior;  and  he  loses  forever  that  time 
and  those  chances,  which,  as  they  happen  to 
all  men,  are  the  strength  and  resources  of  all 
inferior  power. 

The  capital  leading  questions  on  which  you 
must  this  day  decide  are  these  two:  First, 
whether  you  ought  to  concede ;  and  secondly, 
what  your  concession  ought  to  be.  On  the 
first  of  these  questions  we  have  gained,  as  I 
have  just  taken  the  liberty  of  observing  to  you, 
some  ground.  But  I  am  sensible  that  a  good 
deal  more  is  still  to  be  done.  Indeed,  Sir,  to 
enable  us  to  determine  both  on  the  one  and 
the  other  of  these  great  questions  with  a  firm 
and  precise  judgment,  I  think  it  may  be  nec- 
essary to  consider  distinctly  the  true  nature 
and  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  object 
which  we  have  before  us;  because  after  all  our 
171 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmetica 

struggle,  whether  we  will  or  not,  we  must  gov- 
ern America  according  to  that  nature  and  to 
those  circumstances,  and  not  according  to  our 
own  imaginations,  nor  according  to  abstract 
ideas  of  right  —  by  no  means  according  to 
mere  general  theories  of  government,  the  re- 
sort to  which  appears  to  me,  in  our  present 
situation,  no  better  than  arrant  trifling.  I 
shall  therefore  endeavor,  with  your  leave,  to 
lay  before  you  some  of  the ,  most  material  of 
these  circumstances  in  as  full  and  as  clear  a 
manner  as  I  am  able  to  state  them. 

The  first  thing  that  we  have  to  consider  with 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  object  is  —  the 
number  of  people  in  the  Colonies.  I  have 
taken  for  some  years  a  good  deal  of  pains  on 
that  point.  I  can  by  no  calculation  justify 
myself  in  placing  the  number  below  two  mil- 
lions of  inhabitants  of  our  own  European  blood 
and  color,  besides  at  least  five  hundred  thou- 
sand others,  who  form  no  inconsiderable  part 
of  the  strength  and  opulence  of  the  whole. 
This,  Sir,  is,  I  believe,  about  the  true  number. 
There  is  no  occasion  to  exaggerate  where  plain 
truth  is  of  so  much  weight  and  importance. 
But  whether  I  put  the  present  numbers  too 
high  or  too  low  is  a  matter  of  httle  moment. 
Such  is  the  strength  with  which  population 
172 


®n  ConcUiatfon  witb  Bmerica 

shoots  in  that  part  of  the  world,  that,  state  the 
numbers  as  high  as  we  will,  whilst  the  dispute 
continues,  the  exaggeration  ends.  Whilst  we 
are  discussing  any  given  magnitude,  they  are 
grown  to  it.  Whilst  we  spend  our  time  in 
deliberating  on  the  mode  of  governing  two 
millions,  we  shall  find  we  have  millions  more 
to  manage.  Your  children  do  not  grow  faster 
from  infancy  to  manhood  than  they  spread 
from  families  to  communities,  and  from  vil- 
lages to  nations. 

I  put  this  consideration  of  the  present  and 
the  growing  numbers  in  the  front  of  our  delib- 
eration, because.  Sir,  this  consideration  will 
make  it  evident  to  a  blunter  discernment  than 
yours,  that  no  partial,  narrow,  contracted, 
pinched,  occasional  system  will  be  at  all  suit- 
able to  such  an  object.  It  will  show  you  that 
it  is  not  to  be  considered  as  one  of  those 
minima^  which  are  out  of  the  eye  and  con- 
sideration of  the  law;  not  a  paltry  excrescence 
of  the  state;  not  a  mean  dependent,  who  may 
be  neglected  with  little  damage  and  provoked 
with  little  danger.  It  will  prove  that  some 
degree  of  care  and  caution  is  required  in  the 
handling  of  such  an  object ;  it  will  show  that  you 


%.  Minima  — tittle  things.    It  is  a  maxim  that  the  law  does  not  con- 
cern itself  with  little  things. 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmerlca 

ought  not,  in  reason,  to  trifle  with  so  large  a 
mass  of  the  interests  and  feehngs  of  the  hu- 
man race.  You  could  at  no  time  do  so  with- 
out guilt;  and  be  assured  you  will  not  be  able 
to  do  it  long  with  impunity. 

But  the  population  of  this  country,  the 
great  and  growing  population,  though  a  very 
important  consideration,  will  lose  much  of  its 
weight  if  not  combined  with  other  circum- 
stances. The  commerce  of  your  Colonies  is 
out  of  all  proportion  beyond  the  numbers  of 
the  people.  This  ground  of  their  commerce 
indeed  has  been  trod  some  days  ago,  and  with 
great  ability,  by  a  distinguished  person  at 
your  bar."  This]  gentleman,  after  thirty-five 
years  —  it  is  so  long  since  he  first  appeared  at 
the  same  place  to  plead  for  the  commerce  of 
Great  Britain — has  come  again  before  you 
to  plead  the  same  cause,  without  any  other 
effect  of  time,  than  that  to  the  fire  of  imagina- 
tion and  extent  of  erudition  which  even  then 
marked  him  as  one  of  the  first  literary  char- 
acters of  his  age,  he  has  added  a  consummate 
knowledge  in  the  commercial  interest  of  his 
country,  formed  by  a  long  course  of  enlight- 
ened and  discriminating  experience. 


9.    Mr.  Glover  presented  a  petition    from  West   Indian  planters, 
asking  for  peace  as  their  commerce  was  suffering. 

»74 


©n  Goncilfatfon  wltb  ametica 

Sir,  I  should  be  inexcusable  in  coming  aiter 
such  a  person  with  any  detail,  if  a  great  part 
of  the  members  who  now  fill  the  House  had 
not  the  misfortune  to  be  absent  when  he  ap- 
peared at  your  bar.  Besides,  Sir,  I  propose  to 
take  the  matter  at  periods  of  time  somewhat 
different  from  his.  There  is,  if  I  mistake  not, 
a  point  of  view  from  whence,  if  you  will  look 
at  the  subject,  it  is  impossible  that  it  should 
not  make  an  impression   upon  you. 

[The  speaker  here  presents  statistics  showing 
how  the  commerce  of  the  Colonists  has  grown 
and  in  what  lines.     His  summing  up  follows.] 

The  trade  with  America  alone  is  now  within 
less  than  ;^50o,ooo  of  being  equal  to  what  this 
great  commercial  nation,  England,  carried  on 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century  with  the 
whole  world  !  If  I  had  taken  the  largest  year 
of  those  on  your  table,  it  would  rather  have 
exceeded.  But,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  this 
American  trade  an  unnatural  protuberance,  that 
has  drawn  the  juices  from  the  rest  of  the  body .-' 
The  reverse.  It  is  the  very  food  that  has 
nourished  every  other  part  into  its  present 
magnitude.  Our  general  trade  has  been  greatly 
augmented,  and  augmented  more  or  less  in 
almost   every  part  to  which  it  ever  extend^H; 

175 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

but  with  this  material  difference,  that  of  the 
six  miUions  which  in  the  beginning  of  the 
century  constituted  the  whole  mass  of  our  ex- 
port commerce,  the  Colony  trade  was  but  one- 
twelfth  part ;  it  is  now  (as  a  part  of  sixteen 
millions)  considerably  more  than  a  third  of 
the  whole.  This  is  the  relative  proportion  of 
the  importance  of  the  Colonies  at  these  two 
periods;  and  all  reasoning  concerning  our 
mode  of  treating  them  must  have  this  pro- 
portion as  its  basis;  or  it  is  a  reasoning  weak, 
rotten,  and  sophistical. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to 
hurry  over  this  great  consideration.  It  is 
good  for  us  to  be  here.  We  stand  where 
we  have  an  immense  view  of  what  is,  and 
what  is  past.  Clouds,  indeed,  and  dark- 
ness, rest  upon  the  future.  Let  us,  how- 
ever, before  we  descend  from  this  noble 
eminence,  reflect  that  this  growth  of  our 
national  prosperity  has  happened  within  the 
short  period  of  the  life  of  man.  It  has  hap- 
pened within  sixty-eight  years.  There  are 
those  alive  whose  memory  might  touch  the 
two  extremities.  For  instance,  my  Lord 
Bathurst*"  might  remember  all  the  stages  of 
the  progress.     He  was  in   1704  of  an  age  at 

j"A    Then  about  ninety-one  years  of  age. 
176 


©n  Conciliation  vvltb  Bmccica 

least  to  be  made  to  comprehend  such  things. 
He  was  then  old  enough  acta  paroitiini  jam 
legere,  et  quce  sit  pot  nit  cognoscere  virtus}^ 
Suppose,  Sir,  that  the  angel  of  this  auspicious 
youth,  foreseeing  the  many  virtues  which 
make  him  one  of  the  most  amiable,  as  he  is 
one  of  the  most  fortunate,  men  of  his  age,  had 
opened  to  him  in  vision  that  when,  in  the 
fourth  generation,  the  third  Prince  of  the 
House  of  Brunswick  had  sat  twelve  years  on 
the  throne  of  that  nation  which,  by  the  happy 
issue  of  moderate  and  healing  counsels,  was 
to  be  made  Great  Britain,  he  should  see  his 
son,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  turn  back 
the  current  of  hereditary  dignity  to  its  foun- 
tain, and  raise  him  to  a  higher  rank  of  peerage, 
whilst  he  enriched  the  family  with  a  new 
one  —  if,  amidst  these  bright  and  happy  scenes 
of  domestic  honor  and  prosperity,  that  angel 
should  have  drawn  up  the  curtain,  and  un- 
folded the  rising  glories  of  his  country,  and, 
whilst  he  was  gazing  with  admiration  on  the 
then  commercial  grandeur  of  England,  the 
genius  should  point  out  to  him  a  little  speck, 
scarcely  visible  in  the  mass  of  the  national 
interest,  a  small  seminal  principle,  rather  than 

II.     Now  he  was  able  to  understand  the  deeds  of  his  parents  and  to 
know  what  virtue  is. — Virgil. 

177 


®n  Conciliatton  witb  America 

a  formed  body,  and  should  tell  him:  "  Young 
man,  there  is  America  —  which  at  this  day 
serves  for  little  more  than  to  amuse  you  with 
stories  of  savage  men,  and  uncouth  manners; 
yet  shall,  before  you  taste  of  death,  show 
itself  equal  to  the  whole  of  that  commerce 
which  now  attracts  the  envy  of  the  v/orld. 
Whatever  England  has  been  growing  to  by  a 
progressive  increase  of  improvement,  brought 
in  by  varieties  of  people,  by  succession  of 
civilizing  conquests  and  civilizing  settlements 
in  a  series  of  seventeen  hundred  years,  you 
shall  see  as  much  added  to  her  by  America 
in  the  course  of  a  single  life  !  "  If  this  state 
of  his  country  had  been  foretold  to  him, 
would  it  not  require  all  the  sanguine  credulity 
of  youth,  and  all  the  fervid  glow  of  enthusiasm, 
to  make  him  believe  it  ?  Fortunate  man,  he 
has  lived  to  see  it  !  Fortunate,  indeed,  if  he 
lives  to  see  nothing  that  shall  vary  the  pros- 
pect, and  cloud  the  setting  of  his  day  ! 

Excuse  me,  Sir,  if  turning  from  such 
thoughts  I  resume  this  comparative  view  once 
more.  You  have  seen  it  on  a  large  scale; 
look  at  it  on  a  small  one.  I  will  point  out 
to  your  attention  a  particular  instance  of  it  in 
the  single  province  of  Pennsylvania.  In  the 
year  1704  that  province  called  for  ;^i  1,459  in 

178 


©n  Concllfatfon  wftb  amerfca 

value  of  your  commodities,  native  and  foreign. 
This  was  the  whole.  What  did  it  demand  in 
1772  ?  Why,  nearly  fifty  times  as  much  ;  for 
in  that  year  the  export  to  Pennsylvania  was 
;^507,909,  nearly  equal  to  the  export  to  all 
the  Colonies  together  in  the  first  period. 

I  choose,  Sir,  to  enter  into  these  minute  and 
particular  details,  because  generalities,  which 
in  all  other  cases  are  apt  to  heighten  and  raise 
the  subject,  have  here  a  tendency  to  sink  it. 
When  we  speak  of  the  commerce  with  our 
Colonies,  fiction  lags  after  truth,  invention  is 
unfruitful,  and  imagination  cold  and  barren. 

So  far,  Sir,  as  to  the  importance  of  the 
object,  in  view  of  its  commerce,  as  concerned 
in  the  exports  from  England.  If  I  were  to 
detail  the  imports,  I  could  show  how  many 
enjoyments  they  procure  which  deceive  the 
burthen  of  life  ;  how  many  materials  which  in- 
vigorate the  springs  of  national  industry,  and 
extend  and  animate  every  part  of  our  foreign 
and  domestic  commerce.  This  would  be  a 
curious  subject  indeed ;  but  I  must  prescribe 
bounds  to  myself  in  a  matter  so  vast  and 
various. 

I  pass,  therefore,  to  the  Colonies  in  another 
point  of  view,  their  agriculture.  This  they 
have   prosecuted   with    such    a    spirit,    that, 

179 


On  ConclUatfon  witb  Bmertca 

besides  feeding  plentifully  their  own  growing 
multitude,  their  annual  export  of  grain,  com- 
prehending rice,  has  some  years  ago  exceeded 
a  million  in  value.  Of  their  last  harvest  I  am 
persuaded  they  will  export  much  more.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  century  some  of  these 
Colonies  imported  corn  from  the  Mother 
Country.  For  some  time  past  the  Old  World 
has  been  fed  from  the  New.  The  scarcity 
which  you  have  felt  would  have  been  a  deso- 
lating famine,  if  this  child  of  your  old  age, 
A^  with  a  true  filial  piety,  with  a  Roman  charity, 

^"  had  not  put  the   full  breast   of    its  youthful 

exuberance    to   the    mouth  of   its  exhausted 
parent.  ^'^ 

As  to  the  wealth  which  the  Colonies  have 
drawn  from  the  sea  by  their  fisheries,  you  had 
all  that  matter  fully  opened  at  your  bar.  You 
surely  thought  those  acquisitions  of  value,  for 
they  seemed  even  to  excite  your  envy;  and 
yet  the  spirit  by  which  that  enterprising  em- 
ployment has  been  exercised  ought  rather,  in 
my  opinion,  to  have  raised  your  esteem  and 
admiration.  And  pray.  Sir,  what  in  the  world 
is  equal  to  it  .•*  Pass  by  the  other  parts,  and 
look  at  the   manner  in  which   the  people   of 


12.  There  is  a  Roman   legend  of  a  daughter  nourishing  from  her  own 
breasts  her  aged  father  imprisoned  in  his  cell. 

i8o 


f: 


®n  Concllfatlon  witb  America 

New  England  have  of  late  carried  on  the  whale 
fishery.  Whilst  we  follow  them  among  the 
tumbling  mountains  of  ice,  and  behold  them 
penetrating  into  the  deepest  frozen  recesses  of 
Hudson's  Bay  and  Davis's  Straits,  whilst  we 
are  looking  for  them  beneath  the  Arctic  circle, 
we  hear  that  they  have  pierced  into  the  oppo- 
site region  of  polar  cold,  that  they  are  at  the 
antipodes,  and  engaged  under  the  frozen  Ser- 
pent of  the  south/^  Falkland  Island,  which 
seemed  too  remote  and  romantic  an  object  for  «v 
the  grasp  of  national  ambition,  is  but  a  stage 
and  resting-place  in  the  progress  of  their 
victorious  industry.  Nor  is  the  equinoctial 
heat  more  discouraging  to  them  than  the 
accumulated  winter  of  both  the  poles.  We 
know  that  whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line 
and  strike  the  harpoon  on  the  coast  of  Africa, 
others  run  the  longitude  and  pursue  their 
gigantic  game  along  the  coast  of  Brazil.  No 
sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries  ;  no 
climate  that  is  not  witness  to  their  toils. 
Neither  the  perseverance  of  Holland,  nor  the 
activity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous  and  firm 
sagacity  of  English  enterprise  ever  carried  this 
most  perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to  the 
extent  to  which  it  has  been  pushed  by  this 

13.  A  constellation  in  the  far  southern  heavens. 
181 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

recent  people;  a  people  who  are  still,  as  it 
were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened 
into  the  bone  of  manhood. 

When  I  contemplate  these  things;  when  I 
know  that  the  Colonies  in  general  owe  little  or 
nothing  to  any  care  of  ours,  and  that  they  are 
not  squeezed  into  this  happy  form  by  the  con- 
straints of  watchful  and  suspicious  govern- 
ment, but  that,  through  a  wise  and  salutary 
neglect,  a  generous  nature  has  been  suffered 
to  take  her  own  way  to  perfection;  when  I 
reflect  upon  these  effects,  when  I  see  how 
profitable  they  have  been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the 
pride  of  power  sink,  and  all  presumption  in  the 
wisdom  of  human  contrivances  melt  and  die 
away  within  me.  My  rigor  relents.  I  par- 
don something  to  the  spirit  of  liberty. 

I  am  sensible.  Sir,  that  all  which  I  have 
asserted  in  my  detail  is  admitted  in  the  gross; 
but  that  quite  a  different  conclusion  is  drawn 
from  it.  America,  gentlemen  say,  is  a  noble 
object.  It  is  an  object  well  worth  lighting 
for.  Certainly  it  is,  if  fighting  a  people  be  the 
best  way  of  gaining  them.  Gentlemen  in  this 
respect  will  be  led  to  their  choice  of  means  by 
their  complexions  and  their  habits.  Those 
who  understand  the  military  art  will  of  course 
have  some  predilection  for  it.  Those  who 
182 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

wield  the  thunder  of  the  state  may  have  more 
confidence  in  the  efficacy  of  arms.  But  I  con- 
fess, possibly  for  want  of  this  knowledge,  my 
opinion  is  much  more  in  favor  of  prudent 
management  than  of  force;  considering  force 
not  as  an  odious,  but  a  feeble,  instrument  for 
preserving  a  people  so  numerous,  so  active, 
so  growing,  so  spirited  as  this,  in  a  profit- 
able and  subordinate  connection  with  us. 

First,  Sir,  permit  me  to  observe  that  the 
use  of  force  alone  is  but  temporary.  It  may 
subdue  for  a  moment,  but  it  does  not  remove 
the  necessity  of  subduing  again;  and  a  nation 
is  not  governed  which  is  perpetually  to  be 
conquered. 

My  next  objection  is  its  uncertainty.  Terror 
is  not  always  the  effect  of  force,  and  an  arma- 
ment is  not  a  victory.  If  you  do  not  succeed, 
you  are  without  resource;  for,  conciliation 
failing,  force  remains;  but,  force  failing,  no 
further  hope  of  reconciliation  is  left.  Power 
and  authority  are  sometimes  bought  by  kind- 
ness; but  they  can  never  be  begged  as  alms  by 
an  impoverished  and  defeated  violence. 

A  further  objection  to  force  is,  that  you  im- 
pair the  object  by  your  very  endeavors  to  pre- 
serve it.  The  thing  you  fought  for  is  not  the 
thing  which  you  recover;  but  depreciated,  sunk, 

183 


®n  Concdfation  wltb  Bmcrtca 

wasted,  and  consumed  in  the  contest.  Noth- 
ing less  will  content  me  than  whole  America. 
I  do  not  choose  to  consume  its  strength  along 
with  our  own,  because  in  all  parts  it  is  the  Brit- 
ish strength  that  I  consume.  I  do  not  choose  to 
be  caught  by  a  foreign  enemy  at  the  end  of 
this  exhausting  conflict;  and  still  less  in  the 
midst  of  it.  I  may  escape;  but  I  can  make  no 
insurance  against  such  an  event.  Let  me 
add,  that  I  do  not  choose  wholly  to  break  the 
American  spirit;  because  it  is  the  spirit  that 
has  made  the  country. 

Lastly,  we  have  no  sort  of  experience  in 
favor  of  force  as  an  instrument  in  the  rule  of 
our  Colonies.  Their  growth  and  their  utility 
have  been  owing  to  methods  altogether  dif- 
ferent. Our  ancient  indulgence  has  been  said 
to  be  pursued  to  a  fault.  It  may  be  so.  But 
we  know,  if  feeling  is  evidence,  that  our  fault 
was  more  tolerable  than  our  attempt  to  mend 
it  ;  and  our  sin  far  more  salutary  than  our 
penitence. 

These,  Sir,  [are  my  reasons  for  not  enter- 
taining that  high  opinion  of  untried  force  by 
which  many  gentlemen,  for  whose  sentiments 
in  other  particulars  I  have  great  respect,  seem 
to  be  so  greatly  captivated.  But  there  is  still 
behind  a  third  consideration  concerning  this 
184 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

object  which  serves  to  determine  my  opinion 
on  the  sort  of  policy  which  ought  to  be  pur- 
sued in  the  management  of  America,  even 
more  than  its  population  and  its  commerce — 
I  mean  its  temper  and  character. 

In  this  character  of  the  Americans,  a  love 
of  freedom  is  the  predominating  feature  which 
marks  and  distinguishes  the  whole;  and  as  an 
ardent  is  always  a  jealous  affection,  your 
Colonies  become  suspicious,  restive,  and  un- 
tractable  whenever  they  see  the  least  attempt 
to  wrest  from  them  by  force,  or  shuffle  from 
them  by  chicane,  what  they  think  the  only 
advantage  worth  living  for.  This  fierce  spirit 
of  liberty  is  stronger  in  the  English  Colonies 
probably  than  in  any  other  people  of  the 
earth,  and  this  from  a  great  variety  of  power- 
ful causes;  which,  to  understand  the  true 
temper  of  their  minds  and  the  direction  which 
this  spirit  -takes,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  lay 
open  somewhat  more  largely. 

First,  the  people  of  the  Colonies  are  de- 
scendants of  Englishmen.  England,  Sir,  is  a 
nation  which  still,  I  hope,  respects,  and  for- 
merly adored,  her  freedom.  The  Colonists 
emigrated  from  you  when  this  part  of  your 
character  was  most  predominant;  and  they 
took  this  bias  and  direction  the  moment  they 

i8S 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmctica 

parted  from  your  hands.  They  are  therefore 
not  only  devoted  to  hberty,  but  to  Hberty 
according  to  EngHsh  ideas,  and  on  EngHsh 
principles.  Abstract  liberty,  like  other  mere 
abstractions,  is  not  to  be  found.  Liberty 
inheres  in  some  sensible  object;  and  every 
nation  has  formed  to  itself  some  favorite 
point,  which  by  way  of  eminence  becomes  the 
criterion  of  their  happiness.  It  happened,  you 
know,  Sir,  that  the  great  contests  for  freedom 
in  this  country  were  from  the  earliest  times 
chiefly  upon  the  question  of  taxing.  Most  of 
the  contests  in  the  ancient  commonwealths 
turned  primarily  on  the  right  of  election  of 
magistrates;  or  on  the  balance  among  the 
several  orders  of  the  state.  The  question  of 
money  was  not  with  them  so  immediate.  But 
in  England  it  was  otherwise.  On  this  point 
of  taxes  the  ablest  pens,  and  most  eloquent 
tongues,  have  been  exercised ;  the  greatest 
spirits  have  acted  and  suffered. 

In  order  to  give  the  fullest  satisfaction  con- 
cerning the  importance  of  this  point,  it  was 
not  only  necessary  for  those  who  in  argument 
defended  the  excellence  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution to  insist  on  this  privilege  of  granting 
money  as  a  dry  point  of  fact,  and  to  prove 
that   the   right    had    been    acknowledged    in 

x86 


®n  CondUatton  witb  Bmetlca 

ancient  parchments  and  blind  usages  to  reside 
in  a  certain  body  called  a  House  of  Commons. 
They  went  much  farther;  they  attempted  to 
prove,  and  they  succeeded,  that  in  theory  it 
ought  to  be  so,  from  the  particular  nature  of  a 
House  of  Commons  as  an  immediate  repre- 
sentative of  the  people,  whether  the  old 
records  had  delivered  this  oracle  or  not.  They 
took  infinite  pains  to  inculcate,  as  a  funda- 
mental principle,  that  in  all  monarchies  the 
people  must  in  effect  themselves,  mediately  or 
immediately,  possess  the  power  of  granting 
their  own  money,  or  no  shadow  of  liberty  can 
subsist.  The  Colonies  draw  from  you,  as  with 
their  life-blood,  these  ideas  and  principles. 
Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with  you,  fixed  and 
attached  on  this  specific  point  of  taxing. 
Liberty  might  be  safe,  or  might  be  endangered, 
in  twenty  other  particulars,  without  their  being 
much  pleased  or  alarmed.  Here  they  felt  its 
pulse ;  and  as  they  found  that  beat,  they 
thought  themselves  sick  or  sound,  I  do  not 
say  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong  in 
applying  your  general  arguments  to  their  own 
case.  It  is  not  easy,  indeed,  to  make  a 
monopoly  of  theorems  and  corollaries.  The 
fact  is,  that  they  did  thus  apply  those  general 
arguments;  and  your  mode  of  governing  them, 

187 


®n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmeclca 

whether  through  lenity  or  indolence,  through 
wisdom  or  mistake,  confirmed  them  in  the 
imagination  that  they,  as  well  as  you,  had  an 
interest  in  these  common  principles. 

They  were  further  confirmed  in  this  pleas- 
ing error  by  the  form  of  their  provincial 
legislative  assemblies.  Their  governments 
are  popular  in  an  high  degree;  some  are 
merely  popular;  in  all,  the  popular  representa- 
tive is  the  most  weighty;  and  this  share  of 
the  people  in  their  ordinary  government  never 
fails  to  inspire  them  with  lofty  sentiments, 
and  with  a  strong  aversion  from  whatever 
tends  to  deprive  them  of  their  chief  im- 
portance. 

If  anything  were  wanting  to  this  necessary 
operation  of  the  form  of  government,  religion 
would  have  given  it  a  complete  effect.  Reli- 
gion, always  a  principle  of  energy,  in  this  new 
people  is  no  way  worn  out  or  impaired;  and 
their  mode  of  professing  it  is  also  one  main 
cause  of  this  free  spirit.  The  people  are 
Protestants;  and  of  that  kind  which  is  the 
most  adverse  to  all  implicit  submission  of 
mind  and  opinion.  This  is  a  persuasion  not 
only  favorable  to  liberty,  but  built  upon  it. 
I  do  not  think.  Sir,  that  the  reason  of  this 
averseness  in  the  dissenting  churches  from  all 

1 88 


©n  ConcUiation  vvftb  Hmerlca 

that  looks  like  absolute  government  is  so 
much  to  be  sought  in  their  religious  tenets,  as 
in  their  history. 

Every  one  knows  that  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion  is  at  least  coeval  with  most  of  the 
governments  where  it  prevails;  that  it  has 
generally  gone  hand  in  hand  with  them,  and 
received  great  favor  and  every  kind  of  support 
from  authority.  The  Church  of  England  too 
was  formed  from  her  cradle  under  the  nursing 
care  of  regular  government.  But  the  dissent- 
ing interests  have  sprung  up  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  all  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  world, 
and  could  justify  that  opposition  only  on  a 
strong  claim  to  natural  liberty.  Their  very 
existence  depended  on  the  powerful  and  un- 
remitted assertion  of  that  claim.  All  Protes- 
tantism, even  the  most  cold  and  passive,  is  a 
sort  of  dissent. 

But  the  rehgion  most  prevalent  in  our 
Northern  Colonies  is  a  refinement  on  the 
principle  of  resistance;  it  is  the  dissidence  of 
dissent,  and  the  protestantism  of  the  Protes- 
tant religion.  This  religion,  under  a  variety 
of  denominations  agreeing  in  nothing  but  in 
the  communion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  is  pre- 
dominant in  most  of  the  Northern  Provinces, 
where  the  Church  of  England,  notwithstanding 
189 


©n  ConclUaUon  wltb  America 

its  legal  rights,  is  in  reality  no  more  than  a 
sort  of  private  sect,  not  composing  most  prob- 
ably the  tenth  of  the  people.  The  Colonists 
left  England  when  this  spirit  was  high,  and  in 
the  emigrants  was  the  highest  of  all;  and  even 
that  stream  of  foreigners  which  has  been  con- 
stantly flowing  into  these  Colonies  has,  for 
the  greatest  part,  been  composed  of  dissenters 
from  the  establishments  of  their  several  coun- 
tries, who  have  brought  with  them  a  temper 
and  character  far  from  alien  to  that  of  the 
people  with  whom  they  mixed. 

Sir,  I  can  perceive  by  their  manner  that 
some  gentlemen  object  to  the  latitude  of  this 
description,  because  in  the  Southern  Colonies 
the  Church  of  England  forms  a  large  body, 
and  has  a  regular  establishment.  It  is  cer- 
tainly true.  There  is,  however,  a  circumstance 
attending  these  Colonies  which,  in  my  opin- 
ion, fully  counterbalances  this  difference,  and 
makes  the  spirit  of  liberty  still  more  high 
and  haughty  than  in  those  to  the  northward. 
It  is  that  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  they 
have  a  vast  multitude  of  slaves.  Where  this 
is  the  case  in  any  part  of  the  world,  those 
who  are  free  are  by  far  the  most  proud  and 
jealous  of  their  freedom.  Freedom  is  to  them 
not  only  an  enjoyment,    but  a  kind  of  rank 

iqo 


-> ■.  s       1= J 

5-f  « 

E  1  1 

1   t. 

/  ■ 

1 

^^Te  i  ■«-- —  -•■■ 

:   ■      |l  !    w-  . 

^    .^       "jr:^! 

-  3»  •^._ 

#                    •I'^^w- 

^  §  j  ■■—■■     - 

■2  ^1 V?      1 

■  r  *^>^--  -•  ■-           -  WUi«.'^-  "oiMMM- 

ul'^'¥''''           \%Xl        '^ 

'taa—a,  .. 

©n  Concdfation  wltb  Hm  erica 

and  privilege.  Not  seeing  there,  that  free- 
dom, as  in  countries  where  it  is  a  common 
blessing  and  as  broad  and  general  as  the  air, 
may  be  united  with  much  abject  toil,  with 
great  misery,  with  all  the  exterior  of  servi- 
tude,—  liberty  looks,  amongst  them,  like 
something  that  is  more  noble  and  liberal.  I 
do  not  mean.  Sir,  to  commend  the  superior 
morality  of  this  sentiment,  which  has  at  least 
as  much  pride  as  virtue  in  it;  but  I  cannot 
alter  the  nature  of  man.  The  fact  is  so;  and 
these  people  of  the  Southern  Colonies  are 
much  more  strongly,  and  with  an  higher  and 
more  stubborn  spirit,  attached  to  Hberty  than 
those  to  the  northward.  Such  were  all  the 
ancient  commonwealths;  such  were  our  Gothic 
ancestors;  such  were  the  Poles;  such  will  be 
all  masters  of  slaves,  who  are  not  slaves  them- 
selves. In  such  a  people  the  haughtiness  of 
domination  combines  with  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom, fortifies  it,  and  renders  it  invincible. 
Permit  me,  Sir,  to  add  another  circumstance 
in  our  colonies  which  contributes  no  mean 
part  towards  the  growth  and  effect  of  this 
untractable  spirit.  I  mean  their  education. 
In  no  country  perhaps  in  the  world  is  the  law 
so  general  a  study.  The  profession  itself  is 
numerous  and  powerful;  and  in  niost  provinces 

19? 


®n  Conciltatlon  witb  amcrlca 

it  takes  the  lead.  The  greater  number  of  the 
deputies  sent  to  the  Congress  were  lawyers. 
But  all  who  read,  and  most  do  read,  endeavor 
to  obtain  some  smattering  in  that  science.  I 
have  been  told  by  an  eminent  bookseller,  that 
in  no  branch  of  his  business,  after  tracts  of 
popular  devotion,  were  so  many  books  as  those 
on  the  law  exported  to  the  Plantations.  The 
Colonists  have  now  fallen  into  the  way  of 
printing  them  for  their  own  use.  I  hear  that 
they  have  sold  nearly  as  many  of  Blackstone's 
Commentaries  in  America  as  in  England. 

General  Gage  marks  out  this  disposition 
very  particularly  in  a  letter  on  your  table. 
He  states  that  all  the  people  in  his  govern- 
ment are  lawyers,  or  smatterers  in  law;  and 
that  in  Boston  they  have  been  enabled,  by 
successful  chicane,"  wholly  to  evade  many 
parts  of  one  of  your  capital  penal  constitu- 
tions. The  smartness  of  debate  will  say  that 
this  knowledge  ought  to  teach  them  more 
clearly  the  rights  of  legislature,  their  obliga- 
tions to  obedience,  and  the  penalties  of  rebel- 
hon.  All  this  is  mighty  well.  But  my  honor- 
able and  learned  friend  on  the  floor,  ^^  who 
condescends  to  mark  what  I  say  for  animad- 


14.  They  held  town  meetings,  though  contrary  to  law. 

15.  The  attorney  general. 


19 


®n  ConciUation  witb  Bmerica 

version,  will  disdain  that  ground.  He  has 
heard,  as  well  as  I,  that  when  great  honors 
and  great  emoluments  do  not  win  over  this 
knowledge  to  the  service  of  the  state,  it  is  a 
formidable  adversary  to  government.  If  the 
spirit  be  not  tamed  and  broken  by  these  happy 
methods,  it  is  stubborn  and  litigious.  Abeunt 
studia  in  mores. ^^  This  study  renders  men 
acute,  inquisitive,  dexterous,  prompt  in  attack, 
ready  in  defense,  full  of  resources.  In  other 
countries,  the  people,  more  simple,  and  of  a 
less  mercurial  cast,  judge  of  an  ill  principle  in 
government  only  by  an  actual  grievance;  here 
they  anticipate  the  evil,  and  judge  of  the  pres- 
sure of  the  grievance  by  the  badness  of  the 
principle.  They  augur  misgovernment  at  a 
distance,  and  snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in 
every  tainted  breeze. 

The  last  cause  of  this  disobedient  spirit  in 
the  Colonies  is  hardly  less  powerful  than  the 
rest,  as  it  is  not  merely  moral,  but  laid  deep 
in  the  natural  constitution  of  things.  Three 
thousand  miles  of  ocean  lie  between  you  and 
them.  No  contrivance  can  prevent  the  effect 
of  this  distance  in  weakening  government. 
Seas  roll,  and  months  pass,  between  the  order 
and  the  execution;  and  the  want  of  a  speedy 

j6.  Character  is  influenced  by  studies.—  Ovid. 
193 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmctica 

explanation  of  a  single  point  is  enough  to 
defeat  a  whole  system.  You  have,  indeed, 
winged  ministers  of  vengeance,  who  carry 
your  bolts  in  their  pounces  to  the  remotest 
verge  of  the  sea.  But  there  a  power  steps  in 
that  limits  the  arrogance  of  raging  passions 
and  furious  elements,  and  says,  So  far  shalt 
thou  go,  and  no  farther.  Who  are  you,  that 
you  should  fret  and  rage,  and  bite  the  chains 
of  nature .''  Nothing  worse  happens  to  you 
than  does  to  all  nations  who  have  extensive 
empire;  and  it  happens  in  all  the  forms  into 
which  empire  can  be  thrown.  In  large  bodies 
the  circulation  of  power  must  be  less  vigorous 
at  the  extremities.  Nature  has  said  it.  The 
Turk  cannot  govern  Egypt  and  Arabia  and 
Kurdistan  as  he  governs  Thrace;  nor  has  he 
the  same  dominion  in  Crimea  and  Algiers 
which  he  has  at  Brusa  and  Smyrna.  Despo- 
tism itself  is  obliged  to  truck  and  huckster. 
The  Sultan  gets  such  obedience  as  he  can. 
He  governs  with  a  loose  rein,  that  he  may 
govern  at  all;  and  the  whole  of  the  force  and 
vigor  of  his  authority  in  his  center  is  derived 
from  a  prudent  relaxation  in  all  his  borders. 
Spain,  in  her  provinces,  is,  perhaps,  not  so 
well  obeyed  as  you  are  in  yours.  She  com- 
plies, too;  she  submits;  she  watches  times. 
J94 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerlca 

This  is  the  immutable  condition,  the  eternal 
law  of  extensive  and  detached  empire. 

Then,  Sir,  from  these  six  capital  sources — 
of  descent,  of  form  of  government,  of  religion 
in  the  Northern  Provinces,  of  manners  in  the 
Southern,  of  education,  of  the  remoteness  of 
situation  from  the  first  mover  of  government 
—  from  all  these  causes  a  fierce  spirit  of  liberty 
has  grown  up.  It  has  grown  with  the  growth 
of  the  people  in  your  Colonies,  and  increased 
with  the  increase  of  their  wealth ;  a  spirit  that 
unhappily  meeting  with  an  exercise  of  power 
in  England  which,  however  lawful,  is  not 
reconcilable  to  any  ideas  of  liberty,  much  less 
with  theirs,  has  kindled  this  flame  that  is  ready 
to  consume  us. 

I  do  not  mean  to  commend  either  the  spirit 
in  this  excess,  or  the  moral  causes  which  pro- 
duce it.  Perhaps  a  more  smooth  and  accom- 
modating spirit  of  freedom  in  them  would  be 
more  acceptable  to  us.  Perhaps  ideas  of 
liberty  might  be  desired  more  reconcilable 
with  an  arbitrary  and  boundless  authority. 
Perhaps  we  might  wish  the  Colonists  to  be 
persuaded  that  their  liberty  is  more  secure 
when  held  in  trust  for  them  by  us,  as  their 
guardians  during  a  perpetual  minority,  than 
with  any  part  of  it  in  their  own  hands.     The 

195 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

question  is,  not  whether  their  spirit  deserves 
praise  or  blame,  but  —  what,  in  the  name  of 
God,  shall  we  do  with  it  ?  You  have  before 
you  the  object,  such  as  it  is,  with  all  its 
glories,  with  all  its  imperfections  on  its  head. 
You  see  the  magnitude,  the  importance,  the 
temper,  the  habits,  the  disorders.  By  all  these 
considerations  we  are  strongly  urged  to  de- 
termine something  concerning  it.  We  are 
called  upon  to  fix  some  rule  and  line  for  our 
future  conduct  which  may  give  a  little  stability 
to  our  politics,  and  prevent  the  return  of  such 
unhappy  deliberations  as  the  present.  Every 
such  return  will  bring  the  matter  before  us  in 
a  still  more  untractable  form.  For,  what 
astonishing  and  incredible  things  have  we  not 
seen  already!  What  monsters  have  not  been 
generated  from  this  unnatural  contention  ! 
Whilst  every  principle  of  authority  and  re- 
sistance has  been  pushed,  upon  both  sides,  as 
far  as  it  would  go,  there  is  nothing  so  solid 
and  certain,  either  in  reasoning  or  in  practice, 
that  has  not  been  shaken.  Until  very  lately 
all  authority  in  America  seemed  to  be  nothing 
but  an  emanation  from  yours.  Even  the 
popular  part  of  the  Colony  Constitution  de- 
rived all  its  activity  and  its  first  vital  move- 
ment from  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown.  We 
196 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmerlc 

thought,  Sir,  that  the  utmost  which  the  dis- 
contented Colonists  could  do  was  to  disturb 
authority;  we  never  dreamt  they  could  of 
themselves  supply  it  —  knowing  in  general 
what  an  operose  business  it  is  to  establish  a 
government  absolutely  new.  But  having,  for 
our  purposes  in  this  contention,  resolved  that 
none  but  an  obedient  Assembly  should  sit,  the 
humors  of  the  people  there,  finding  all  passage 
through  the  legal  channel  stopped,  with  great 
violence  broke  out  another  way.  Some  prov- 
inces have  tried  their  experiment,  as  we  have 
tried  ours;  and  theirs  has  succeeded.  They 
have  formed  a  government  sufficient  for  its 
purposes,  without  the  bustle  of  a  revolution  or 
the  troublesome  formality  of  an  election. 
Evident  necessity  and  tacit  consent  have  done 
the  business  in  an  instant.  So  well  they  have 
done  it,  that  Lord  Dunmore  "  —  the  account 
is  among  the  fragments  on  your  table  —  tells 
you  that  the  new  institution  is  infinitely  better 
obeyed  than  the  ancient  government  ever  was 
in  its  most  fortunate  periods.  Obedience  is 
what  makes  government,  and  not  the  names 
by  which  it  is  called;  not  the  name  of  Gover- 
nor, as  formerly,  or  Committee,  as  at  present. 
This  new  government  has  originated  directly 

17.    One  of  the  governors  of  Virginia. 
197 


®n  Conciliation  with  americd 

from  the  people,  and  was  not  transmitted 
through  any  of  the  ordinary  artificial  media 
of  a  positive  constitution.  It  was  not  a  manu- 
facture ready  formed,  and  transmitted  to  them 
in  that  condition  from  England.  The  evil 
arising  from  hence  is  this:  the  Colonists  hav- 
ing found  the  possibility  of  enjoying  the  ad- 
vantages of  order  in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  for 
liberty,  such  struggles  will  not  henceforward 
seem  so  terrible  to  the  settled  and  sober  part 
of  mankind  as  they  had  appeared  before. 

Pursuing  the  same  plan  of  punishing  by 
the  denial  of  the  exercise  of  government  to 
still  greater  lengths,  we  wholly  abrogated  the 
ancient  government  of  Massachusetts.  We 
were  confident  that  the  first  feeling,  if  not 
the  very  prospect,  of  anarchy  would  instantly 
enforce  a  complete  submission.  The  experi- 
ment was  tried.  A  new,  strange,  unexpected 
face  of  things  appeared.  Anarchy  is  found 
tolerable.  A  vast  province  has  now  subsisted, 
and  subsisted  in  a  considerable  degree  of  health 
and  vigor  for  near  a  twelvemonth,  without 
Governor,  without  public  Council,  without 
judges,  without  executive  magistrates.  How 
long  it  will  continue  in  this  state,  or  what  may 
arise  out  of  this  unheard-of  situation,  how  can 
the  wisest  of  us  conjecture  .'' 

198 


©n  Conciliatfon  vvftb  Smcdca 

Our  late  experience  has  taught  us  that  many 
of  those  fundamental  principles,  formerly  be- 
lieved infallible,  are  either  not  of  the  impor- 
tance they  were  imagined  to  be,  or  that  we 
have  not  at  all  adverted  to  some  other  far  more 
important  and  far  more  powerful  principles, 
which  entirely  overrule  those  we  had  con- 
sidered as  omnipotent.  I  am  much  against 
any  further  experiments  which  tend  to  put 
to  the  proof  any  more  of  these  allowed 
opinions  which  contribute  so  much  to  the 
public  tranquillity.  In  effect,  we  suffer  as 
much  at  home  by  this  loosening  of  all  ties, 
and  this  concussion  of  all  established  opin- 
ions, as  we  do  abroad;  for  in  order  to  prove 
that  the  Americans  have  no  right  to  their 
liberties,  we  are  every  day  endeavoring  to 
subvert  the  maxims  which  preserve  the  whole 
spirit  of  our  own.  To  prove  that  the  Ameri- 
cans ought  not  to  be  free,  we  are  obliged  to 
depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself;  and  we 
never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over 
them  in  debate  without  attacking  some  of  those 
principles,  or  deriding  some  of  those  feelings, 
for  which  our  ancestors  have  shed  their  blood. 

But,  Sir,  in  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  per- 
nicious experiments,  I  do  not  mean  to  preclude 
the  fullest  inquiry.     Far  from  it.     Far  from 

199 


©n  ConcUiation  wltb  Bmetica 

deciding  on  a  sudden  or  partial  view,  I  would 
patiently  go  round  and  round  the  subject,  and 
survey  it  minutely  in  every  possible  aspect. 
Sir,  if  I  were  capable  of  engaging  you  to  an 
equal  attention,  I  would  state  that,  as  far  as  I 
am  capable  of  discerning,  there  are  but  three 
ways  of  proceeding  relative  to  this  stubborn 
spirit  which  prevails  in  your  Colonies,  and 
disturbs  your  government.  These  are  —  to 
change  that  spirit,  as  inconvenient,  by  remov- 
ing the  causes;  to  prosecute  it  as  criminal;  or 
to  comply  with  it  as  necessary.  I  would  not 
be  guilty  of  an  imperfect  enumeration;  I  can 
think  of  but  these  three.  Another  has  in- 
deed been  started, —  that  of  giving  up  the 
Colonies;  but  it  met  so  slight  a  reception  that 
I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to  dwell  a  great 
while  upon  it.  It  is  nothing  but  a  little  sally 
of  anger,  like  the  frowardness  of  peevish 
children,  who,  when  they  cannot  get  all  they 
would  have,  are  resolved  to  take  nothing. 

The  first  of  these  plans  —  to  change  the 
spirit,  as  inconvenient,  by  removing  the  causes 
—  I  think  is  the  most  like  a  systematic  pro- 
ceeding. It  is  radical  in  its  principle;  but 
it  is  attended  with  great  difficulties,  some  of 
them  little  short,  as  I  conceive,  of  impossibili- 
ties. This  will  appear  by  examining  into  the 
plans  which  have  been  proposed. 


©n  Concflfatlon  wttb  amerlca 

As  the  growing  population  in  the  Colonies 
is  evidently  one  cause  of  their  resistance,  it 
was  last  session  mentioned  in  both  Houses, 
by  men  of  weight,  and  received  not  without 
applause,  that  in  order  to  check  this  evil  it 
would  be  proper  for  the  Crown  to  make  no 
further  grants  of  land.  But  to  this  scheme 
there  are  two  objections.  The  first,  that  there 
is  already  so  much  unsettled  land  in  private 
hands  as  to  afford  room  for  an  immense  future 
population,  although  the  Crown  not  only  with- 
held its  grants,  but  annihilated  its  soil.  If 
this  be  the  case,  then  the  only  effect  of  this 
avarice  of  desolation,  this  hoarding  of  a  royal 
wilderness,  would  be  to  raise  the  value  of  the 
possessions  in  the  hands  of  the  great  private 
monopolists,  without  any  adequate  check  to 
the  growing  and  alarming  mischief  of  popu- 
lation. 

But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would 
be  the  consequence  ?  The  people  would  oc- 
cupy without  grants.  They  have  already  so 
occupied  in  many  places.  You  cannot  statiqn 
garrisons  in  every  part  of  these  deserts.  If 
you  drive  the  people  from  one  place,  they  will 
carry  on  their  annual  tillage,  and  remove  with 
their  flocks  and  herds  to  another.  Many  of 
the  people  in  the  back  settlements  are  already 
little  attached  to  particular  situations.    Already 


©n  CToncUiation  wltb  Bmerica 

they  have  topped  the  Appalachian  Mountains. 
From  thence  they  behold  before  them  an 
immense  plain,  one  vast,  rich,  level  meadow; 
a  square  of  five  hundred  miles.  Over  this 
they  would  wander  without  a  possibility  of 
restraint;  they  would  change  their  manners 
with  the  habits  of  their  life;  would  soon  forget 
a  government  by  which  they  were  disowned; 
would  become  hordes  of  English  Tartars;  and, 
pouring  down  upon  your  unfortified  frontiers  a 
fierce  and  irresistible  cavalry,  become  masters 
of  your  governors  and  your  counsellors,  your 
collectors  and  comptrollers,  and  of  all  the 
slaves  that  adhered  to  them.  Such  would, 
and  in  no  long  time  must  be,  the  effect  of 
attempting  to  forbid  as  a  crime  and  to  sup- 
press as  an  evil  the  command  and  •  blessing 
of  providence,  Increase  and  multiply.  Such 
would  be  the  happy  result  of  the  endeavor  to 
keep  as  a  lair  of  wild  beasts  that  earth  which 
God,  by  an  express  charter,  has  given  to  the 
children  of  men. 

Far  different,  and  surely  much  wiser,  has 
been  our  policy  hitherto.  Hitherto  we  have 
invited  our  people,  by  every  kind  of  bounty, 
to  fixed  establishments.  We  have  invited  the 
husbandman  to  look  to  authority  for  his  title. 
We  have  taught  him  piously  to  believe  in  the 
202 


On  Conciliation  witb  America 

mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and  parchment.  We 
have  thrown  each  tract  of  land,  as  it  was 
peopled,  into  districts,  that  the  ruling  power 
should  never  be  wholly  out  of  sight  ;  and  we 
have  carefully  attended  every  settlement  with 
government. 

Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as 
well  as  for  the  reasons  I  have  just  given,  I 
think  this  new  project  of  hedging-in  popula- 
tion to  be  neither  prudent  nor  practicable. 

To  impoverish  the  Colonies  in  general,  and 
in  particular  to  arrest  the  noble  course  of 
their  maritime  enterprises,  would  be  a  more 
easy  task.  I  freely  confess  it.  We  have 
shown  .a  disposition  to  a  system  of  this  kind, 
a  disposition  even  to  continue  the  restraint 
after  the  offense,  looking  on  ourselves  as 
rivals  to  our  Colonies,  and  persuaded  that  of 
course  we  must  gain  all  that  they  shall  lose. 
Much  mischief  we  may  certainly  do.  The 
power  inadequate  to  all  other  things  is  often 
more  than  sufftcient  for  this.  I  do  not  look  on 
the  direct  and  immediate  power  of  the  Col- 
onies to  resist  our  violence  as  very  formidable. 
In  this,  however,  I  may  be  mistaken.  But 
when  I  consider  that  we  have  Colonies  for  no 
purpose  but  to  be  serviceable  to  us,  it  seems 
to  my  poor  understanding  a  little  preposterous 
203 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

to  make  them  unserviceable  in  order  to  keep 
them  obedient.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing  more 
than  the  old  and,  as  I  thought,  exploded  prob- 
lem of  tyranny,  which  proposes  to  beggar  its 
subjects  into  submission.  But  remember, 
when  you  have  completed  your  system  of 
impoverishment,  that  nature  still  proceeds 
in  her  ordinary  course;  that  discontent  will 
increase  with  misery;  and  that  there  are  criti- 
cal moments  in  the  fortune  of  all  states  when 
they  who  are  too  weak  to  contribute  to  your 
prosperity  may  be  strong  enough  to  complete 
your  ruin.      Spoliatis  anna  super  sunt. ^^ 

The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in 
our  Colonies  are,  I  am  afraid,  unalterable 
by  any  human  art.  We  cannot,  I  fear,  falsify 
the  pedigree  of  this  fierce  people,  and  per- 
suade them  that  they  are  not  sprung  from  a 
nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  freedom 
circulates.  The  language  in  which  they 
would  hear  you  tell  them  this  tale  would  de- 
tect the  imposition;  your  speech  would  betray 
you.  An  Englishman  is  the  unfittest  person 
on  earth  to  argue  another  Enghshman  into 
slavery. 

I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to 
change  their  republican  religion  as  their  free 

i8.  Arms  remain  to  those  who  have  been  robbed. 
204 


©n  Concafation  wltb  Hmectca 

descent;  or  to  substitute  tne  Roman  Catholic 
as  a  penalty,  or  the  Church  of  England  as  an 
improvement.  The  mode  of  inquisition  and 
dragooning  is  going  out  of  fashion  in  the 
Old  World,  and  I  should  not  confide  much  to 
their  efficacy  in  the  New.  The  education  of 
the  Americans  is  also  on  the  same  unalterable 
bottom  with  their  religion.  You  cannot  per- 
suade them  to  burn  their  books  of  curious 
science;  to  banish  their  lawyers  from  their 
courts  of  laws;  or  to  quench  the  lights  of 
their  assemblies  by  refusing  to  choose  those 
persons  who  are  best  read  in  their  privileges. 
It  would  be  no  less  impracticable  to  think  of 
wholly  annihilating  the  popular  assemblies 
in  which  these  lawyers  sit.  The  army,  by 
which  we  must  govern  in  their  place,  would 
be  far  more  chargeable  to  us,  not  quite  so 
effectual,  and  perhaps  in  the  end  full  as  diffi- 
cult to  be  kept  in  obedience. 

With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit 
of  Virginia  and  the  Southern  Colonies,  it  has 
been  proposed,  I  know,  to  reduce  it  by  de- 
claring a  general  enfranchisement  of  their 
slaves.  This  object  has  had  its  advocates 
and  panegyrists;  yet  I  never  could  argue  my- 
self into  any  opinion  of  it.  Slaves  are  often 
much  attached  to  their  masters.     A  general 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmcrica 

wild  offer  of  liberty  would  not  always  be 
accepted.  History  furnishes  few  instances  of 
it.  It  is  sometimes  as  hard  to  persuade 
slaves  to  be  free,  as  it  is  to  compel  freemen 
to  be  slaves;  and  in  this  auspicious  scheme  we 
should  have  both  these  pleasing  tasks  on  our 
hands  at  once.  But  when  we  talk  of  enfran- 
chisement, do  we  not  perceive  that  the  Amer- 
ican master  may  enfranchise  too,  and  arm 
servile  hands  in  defense  of  freedom  .-*  —  a 
measure  to  which  other  people  have  had  re- 
course more  than  once,  and  not  without  suc- 
cess, in  a  desperate  situation  of  their  affairs. 
Slaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people 
are,  and  dull  as  all  men  are  from  slavery, 
must  they  not  a  little  suspect  the  offer  of 
freedom  from  that  very  nation  which  has  sold 
them  to  their  present  masters .''  —  from  that 
nation,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel  with 
those  masters  is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more 
in  that  inhuman  traffic  ^  An  offer  of  free- 
dom from  England  would  come  rather  oddly, 
shipped  to  them  in  an  African  vessel  which 
is  refused  an  entry  into  the  ports  of  Virginia 
or'  Carolina  with  a  cargo  of  three  hundred 
Angola  negroes.  It  would  be  curious  to  see 
the  Guinea  captain  attempting  at  the  same 
instant  to  publish  his  proclamation  of  liberty, 
and  to  advertise  his  sale  of  slaves, 
206 


®n  ConcUiatton  wltb  Bmerlcu 

But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difticul- 
ties  got  over.  The  ocean  remains.  You  can- 
not pump  this  dry;  and  as  long  as  it  continues 
in  its  present  bed,  so  long  all  the  causes 
which  weaken  authority  by  distance  will  con- 
tinue. 

'  *  Ye  gods,  annihilate  but  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy!  " 
was  a  pious  and  passionate  prayer;  but  just 
as  reasonable  as  many  of  the   serious  wishes 
of  grave  and  solemn  poHticians. 

If  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to 
think  of  any  alternative  course  for  changing 
the  moral  causes,  and  not  quite  easy  to 
remove  the  natural,  which  produce  preju- 
dices irreconcilable  to  the  late  exercise  of  our 
authority  —  but  that  the  spirit  infallibly  will 
continue,  and,  continuing,  will  produce  such 
effects  as  now  embarrass  us — the  second 
mode  under  consideration  is  to  prosecute  that 
spirit  in  its  overt  acts  as  criminal. 

At  this  proposition  I  must  pause  a  moment. 
The  thing  seems  a  great  deal  too  big  for  my 
ideas  of  jurisprudence.  It  should  seem  to  my 
way  of  conceiving  such  matters  that  there 
is  a  very  wide  difference,  in  reason  and  policy, 
between  the  mode  of  proceeding  on  the  irreg- 
ular conduct  of  scattered  individuals,  or  even 
of  bands  of  men  who  disturb  order  within  the 
207 


©n  Conctliatlon  wltb  amcrica 

state,  and  the  civil  dissensions  which  may, 
from  time  to  time,  on  great  questions,  agitate 
the  several  communities  which  compose  a 
great  empire.  It  looks  to  me  to  be  narrow 
and  pedantic  to  apply  the  ordinary  ideas  of 
criminal  justice  to  this  great  public  contest. 
I  do  not  know  the  method  of  drawing  up  an 
indictment  against  a  whole  people.  I  can- 
not insult  and  ridicule  the  feelings  of  mil- 
lions of  my  fellow-creatures  as  Sir  Edward 
Coke^*  insulted  one  excellent  individual  (Sir 
Walter  Raleigh)  at  the  bar.'"  I  hope  I  am 
not  ripe  to  pass  sentence  on  the  gravest  public 
bodies,  intrusted  with  magistracies  of  great 
authority  and  dignity,  and  charged  with  the 
safety  of  their  fellow-citizens,  upon  the  very 
same  title  that  I  am.  I  really  think  that,  for 
wise  men,  this  is  not  judicious;  for  sober  men, 
not  decent;  for  minds  tinctured  with  humanity, 
not  mild  and  merciful. 

Perhaps,  Sir,  I  am  mistaken  in  my  idea  of 
an  empire,  as  distinguished  from  a  single  state 
or  kingdom.     But  my  idea  of  it  is  this,  that 

19.  Attorney  general  in  1603. 

20.  "Coke:  I  will  prove  you  the  most  notorious  traitor  that  ever 
came  to  the  bar. 

Raleigh:  Your  words  cannot  condemn  me.  My  innocency  is  my 
defense. 

Coke:  Thou  art  a  monster.  Thou  hast  an  English  face  but  a  Spanish 
heart."    Professor  Goodrich  from  Howell's  State  Trials. 

208 


©n  Conciliation  witb  America 

an  empire  is  the  aggregate  of  many  states 
under  one  common  head,  whether  this  head 
be  a  monarch  or  a  presiding  repubhc.  It 
does,  in  such  constitutions,  frequently  happen 
—  and  nothing  but  the  dismal,  cold,  dead  uni- 
formity of  servitude  can  prevent  its  happen- 
ing —  that  the  subordinate  parts  have  many 
local  privileges  and  immunities.  Between 
these  privileges  and  the  supreme  common 
authority  the  line  may  be  extremely  nice. 
Of  course  disputes,  often,  too,  very  bitter 
disputes,  and  much  ill  blood,  will  arise.  But 
though  every  privilege  is  an  exemption,  in 
the  case,  from  the  ordinary  exercise  of  the 
supreme  authority,  it  is  no  denial  of  it.  The 
claim  of  a  privilege  seems  rather,  ex  vi  ter- 
mini,'^^  to  imply  a  superior  power;  for  to  talk 
of  the  privileges  of  a  state  or  of  a  person 
who  has  no  superior  is  hardly  any  better  than 
speaking  nonsense. 

Now,  in  such  unfortunate  quarrels  among 
the  component  parts  of  a  great  political 
union  of  communities,  I  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive anything  more  completely  imprudent 
than  for  the  head  of  the  empire  to  insist  that, 
if  any  privilege  is  pleaded  against  his  will  or 
his    acts,   his  whole    authority  is   denied;  in- 

21.  By  force  of  the  term. 

2og 


©n  Conciliatton  wltb  Bmcrica 

stantly  to  proclaim  rebellion,  to  beat  to  arms, 
and  to  put  the  offending  provinces  under  the 
ban.  Will  not  this,  Sir,  very  soon  teach  the 
provinces  to  make  no  distinctions  on  their 
part  ?  Will  it  not  teach  them  that  the  gov- 
ernment, against  which  a  claim  of  liberty  is 
tantamount  to  high  treason,  is  a  government 
to  which  submission  is  equivalent  to  slavery  ? 
It  may  not  always  be  quite  convenient  to 
impress  dependent  communities  with  such 
an   idea. 

We  are,  indeed,  in  all  disputes  with  the 
Colonies,  by  the  necessity  of  things,  the  judge. 
It  is  true,  Sir.  But  I  confess  that  the  charac- 
ter of  judge  in  my  own  cause  is  a  thing  that 
frightens  me.  Instead  of  filling  me  with 
pride,  I  am  exceedingly  humbled  by  it.  I 
cannot  proceed  with  a  stern,  assured,  judicial 
conference  until  I  find  myself  in  something 
more  like  a  judicial  character.  I  must  have 
these  hesitations  as  long  as  I  am  compelled  to 
recollect  that,  in  my  little  reading  upon  such 
contests  as  these,  the  sense  of  mankind  has 
at  least  as  often  decided  against  the  superior 
as  the  subordinate  power.  Sir,  let  me  add, 
too,  that  the  opinion  of  my  having  some  ab- 
stract right  in  my  favor  would  not  put  me 
much  at  my  ease  in  passing  sentence,  unless  I 


©n  ConcfUatfon  wltb  Hmerfca 

could  be  sure  that  there  were  no  rights  which, 
in  their  exercise  under  certain  circumstances, 
were  not  the  most  odious  of  all  wrongs  and 
the  most  vexatious  of  all  injustice.  Sir,  these 
considerations  have  great  weight  with  me 
when  I  find  things  so  circumstanced,  that  I 
see  the  same  party  at  once  a  civil  litigant 
against  me  in  point  of  right  and  a  culprit 
before  me,  while  I  sit  as  a  criminal  judge  on 
acts  of  his  whose  moral  quality  is  to  be  de- 
cided upon  the  merits  of  that  very  litigation. 
Men  are  every  now  and  then  put,  by  the 
complexity  of  human  affairs,  into  strange  situ- 
ations; but  justice  is  the  same,  let  the  judge 
be  in  what  situation  he  will. 

There  is.  Sir,  also  a  circumstance  which 
convinces  me  that  this  mode  of  criminal  pro- 
ceeding is  not,  at  least  in  the  present  stage  of 
our  contest,  altogether  expedient;  which  is 
nothing  less  than  the  conduct  of  those  very 
persons  who  have  seemed  to  adopt  that  mode 
by  lately  declaring  a  rebellion  in  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  as  they  had  formerly  addressed  to 
have  traitors  brought  hither,  under  an  Act  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  for  trial.  For  though  re- 
bellion is  declared,  it  is  not  proceeded  against 
as  such,  nor  have  any  steps  been  taken 
towards  the  apprehension  or  conviction  of  any 

2H 


®n  Concilfatfon  wltb  America 

individual  offender,  either  on  our  late  or  our 
former  Address;  but  modes  of  public  coercion 
have  been  adopted,  and  such  as  have  much 
more  resemblance  to  a  sort  of  qualified  hostil- 
ity toward  an  independent  power  than  the 
punishment  of  rebellious  subjects.  All  this 
seems  rather  inconsistent;  but  it  shows  how 
difficult  it  is  to  apply  these  juridical  ideas  to 
out  present  case. 

In  this  situation,  let  us  seriously  and  coolly 
ponder.  What  is  it  we  have  got  by  all  our 
menaces,  which  have  been  many  and  fero- 
cious.!* What  advantage  have  we  derived 
from  the  penal  laws  we  have  passed,  and 
which,  for  the  time,  have  been  severe  and 
numerous  ?  What  advances  have  we  made 
towards  our  object  by  the  sending  of  a  force 
which,  by  land  and  sea,  is  no  contemptible 
strength  ?  Has  the  disorder  abated  ?  Noth- 
ing less.  When  I  see  things  in  this  situation 
after  such  confident  hopes,  bold  promises, 
and  active  exertions,  I  cannot,  for  my  life, 
avoid  a  suspicion  that  the  plan  itself  is  not 
correctly  right. 

If,  then,  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this 
spirit  of  American  liberty  be  for  the  greater 
part,  or  rather  entirely,  impracticable;  if  the 
ideas  of  criminal  process  be  inapplicable  —  or, 

212 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmerlca 

if  applicable,  are  in  the  highest  degree  inex- 
pedient; what  way  yet  remains?  No  way  is 
open  but  the  third  and  last, —  to  comply  with 
the  American  spirit  as  necessary;  or,  if  you 
please,  to  submit  to  it  as  a  necessary  evil. 

If  we  adopt  this  mode, —  if  we  mean  to 
conciliate  and  concede, — let  us  see  of  what 
nature  the  concession  ought  to  be.  To  ascer- 
tain the  nature  of  our  concession,  we  must 
look  at  their  complaint.  The  Colonies  com- 
plain that  they  have  not  the  characteristic 
mark  and  seal  of  British  freedom.  They  com- 
plain that  they  are  taxed  in  a  Parliament  in 
which  they  are  not  represented.  If  you  mean 
to  satisfy  them  at  all,  you  must  satisfy  them 
with  regard  to  this  complaint.  If  you  mean 
to  please  any  people,  you  must  give  them  the 
boon  which  they  ask;  not  what  you  may 
think  better  for  them,  but  of  a  kind  totally 
different.  Such  an  act  may  be  a  wise  regula- 
tion, but  it  is  no  concession;  whereas  our 
present  theme  is  the  mode  of  giving  satisfac- 
tion. 

Sir,  I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am 
resolved  this  day  to  have  nothing  at  all  to  do 
with  the  question  of  the  right  of  taxation. 
Some  gentlemen  startle  —  but  it  is  true;  I  put 
it  totally  out  of  the  question.  It  is  less  than 
213 


©n  Conctliatlon  witb  2lmcrfca 

nothing  in  my  consideration.  I  do  not  indeed 
wonder,  nor  will  you,  Sir,  that  gentlemen  of 
profound  learning  are  fond  of  displaying  it  on 
this  profound  subject.  But  my  consideration 
is  narrow,  confined,  and  wholly  limited  to  the 
policy  of  the  question.  I  do  not  examine 
whether  the  giving  away  a  man's  money  be  a 
power  excepted  and  reserved  out  of  the  gen- 
eral trust  of  government,  and  how  far  all  man- 
kind, in  all  forms  of  polity,  are  entitled  to  an 
exercise  of  that  right  by  the  charter  of  nature; 
or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  a  right  of  taxa- 
tion is  necessarily  involved  in  the  general  prin- 
ciple of  legislation,  and  inseparable  from  the 
ordinary  supreme  power.  These  are  deep 
questions,  where  great  names  militate  against 
each  other,  where  reason  is  perplexed,  and 
an  appeal  to  authorities  only  thickens  the  con- 
fusion; for  high  and  reverend  authorities  lift 
up  their  heads  on  both  sides,  and  there  is  no 
sure  footing  in  the  middle.  This  point  is  the 
great 

"Serbonian  bog, 
Betwixt  Damiata  and  Mount  Casius  old, 
Where  armies  whole  have  sunk."^'' 

I  do  not  intend  to  be  overwhelmed  in  that 
bog,  though  in  such  respectable  company. 

22.  From  Paradise  Lost. 

214 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmcrica 

The  question  with  me  is,  not  whether  you 
have  a  right  to  render  your  people  miserable, 
but  whether  it  is  not  your  interest  to  make 
them  happy.  It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells 
me  I  may  do,  but  what  humanity,  reason,  and 
justice  tell  me  I  ought  to  do.  Is  a  politic  act 
the  worse  for  being  a  generous  one }  Is  no 
concession  proper  but  that  which  is  made  from 
your  want  of  right  to  keep  what  you  grant } 
Or  does  it  lessen  the  grace  or  dignity  of  relax- 
ing in  the  exercise  of  an  odious  claim  because 
you  have  your  evidence-room  full  of  titles,  and 
your  magazine  stuffed  with  arms  to  enforce 
them  ?  What  signify  all  those  titles,  and  all 
those  arms  ?  Of  what  avail  are  they  when  the 
reason  of  the  thing  tells  me  that  the  assertion 
of  my  title  is  the  loss  of  my  suit,  and  that  I 
could  do  nothing  but  wound  myself  by  the  use 
of  my  own  weapons  ? 

Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  keeping  up  the  concord  of 
this  Empire  by  a  unity  of  spirit,  though  in  a 
diversity  of  operations,  that,  if  I  were  sure  the 
Colonists  had,  at  their  leaving  this  country, 
sealed  a  regular  compact  of  servitude;  that 
they  had  solemnly  abjured  all  the  rights  of 
citizens;  that  they  had  made  a  vow  to  re- 
nounce all  ideas  of  liberty  for  them  and  their 
posterity  to  all  generations;  yet  I  should  hold 
215 


©n  Conciliation  witb  America 

myself  obliged  to  conform  to  the  temper  I 
found  universally  prevalent  in  my  own  day, 
and  to  govern  two  million  of  men,  impatient 
of  servitude,  on  the  principles  of  freedom.  I 
am  not  determining  a  point  of  law,  I  am  re- 
storing tranquillity  ;  and  the  general  character 
and  situation  of  a  people  must  determine  what 
sort  of  government  is  fitted  for  them.  That 
point  nothing  else  can  or  ought  to  determine. 

My  idea,  therefore,  without  considering 
whether  we  yield  as  matter  of  right,  or  grant 
as  matter  of  favor,  is  to  admit  the  people  of 
our  Colonies  into  an  interest  in  the  Constitu- 
tion; and,  by  recording  that  admission  in  the 
journals  of  Parliament,  to  give  them  as  strong 
an  assurance  as  the  nature  of  the  thing  will 
admit,  that  we  mean  forever  to  adhere  to  that 
solemn  declaration  of  systematic  indulgence. 

Some  years  ago  the  repeal  of  a  revenue  act 
might  have  served  to  show  that  we  intended 
an  unconditional  abatement  of  the  exercise  of 
a  taxing  power.  Such  a  measure  was  then 
sufficient  to  remove  all  suspicion,  and  to  give 
perfect  content.  But  unfortunate  events  since 
that  time  may  make  something  further  neces- 
sary; and  not  more  necessary  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  Colonies  than  for  the  dignity  and 
consistency  of  cur  own  future  proceedings. 
216 


®n  ConcfUatfon  witb  Bmetfca 

I  have  taken  a  very  incorrect  measure  of 
the  disposition  of  the  House  if  this  proposal  in 
itself  would  be  received  with  dislike.  I  think, 
Sir,  we  have  few  American  financiers.  Bat 
our  misfortune  is,  we  are  too  acute,  we  are 
too  exquisite  in  our  conjectures  of  the  future, 
for  men  oppressed  with  such  great  and  pres- 
ent evils.  The  more  moderate  among  the 
opposers  of  Parliamentary  concession  freely 
confess  that  they  hope  no  good  from  taxation, 
but  they  apprehend  the  Colonists  have  further 
views;  and  if  this  point  were  conceded,  they 
would  instantly  attack  the  trade  laws.  These 
gentlemen  are  convinced  that  this  was  the  in- 
tention from  the  beginning,  and  the  quarrel  of 
the  Americans  with  taxation  was  no  more  than 
a  cloak  and  cover  to  this  design.  Such  has 
been  the  language  even  of  a  gentleman  of  real 
moderation,  and  of  a  natural  temper  well  ad- 
justed to  fair  and  equal  government. ^^  I  am, 
however.  Sir,  not  a  little  surprised  at  this 
kind  of  discourse,  whenever  I  hear  it;  and  I 
am  the  more  surprised  on  account  of  the  ar- 
guments which  I  constantly  find  in  company 
with  it,  and  which  are  often  urged  from  the 
same  mouths  and  on  the  same  day. 

For   instance,    when    we    allege    that    it  is 

23.  Mr.  Rice. 

217 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmcrlca 

against  reason  to  tax  a  people  under  so  many 
restraints  in  trade  as  the  Americans,  the  noble 
lord  in  the  blue  ribbon  shall  tell  you  that  the 
restraints  on  trade  are  futile  and  useless  —  of 
no  advantage  to  us,  and  of  no  burthen  to  those 
on  whom  they  are  imposed;  that  the  trade  to 
America  is  not  secured  by  the  Acts  of  Naviga- 
tion, but  by  the  natural  and  irresistible  advan- 
tage of  a  commercial  preference. 

Such  is  the  merit  of  the  trade  laws  in  this 
posture  of  the  debate.  But  when  strong 
internal  circumstances  are  urged  against  the 
taxes;  when  the  scheme  is  dissected;  when 
experience  and  the  nature  of  things  are 
brought  to  prove,  and  do  prove,  the  utter  im- 
possibility of  obtaining  an  effective  revenue 
from  the  Colonies;  when  these  things  are 
pressed,  or  rather  press  themselves,  so  as  to 
drive  the  advocates  of  Colony  taxes  to  a  clear 
admission  of  the  futility  of  the  scheme;  then. 
Sir,  the  sleeping  trade  laws  revive  from  their 
trance,  and  this  useless  taxation  is  to  be  kept 
sacred,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  a  counter- 
guard  and  security  of  the  laws  of  trade. 

Then,  Sir,  you  keep  up  revenue  laws  which 

are  mischievous,    in   order  to  preserve  trade 

laws  that  are  useless.     Such  is  the  wisdom  of 

our  plan  in  both  its  members.     They  are  sep- 

218 


®n  Conciliation  wltb  amerlca 

arately  given  up  as  of  no  value,  and  yet  one 
is  always  to  be  defended  for  the  sake  of  the 
other;  but  I  cannot  agree  with  the  noble  lord, 
nor  with  the  pamphlet  from  whence  he  seems 
to  have  borrowed  these  ideas  concerning  the 
inutility  of  the  trade  laws.  For,  without 
idolizing  them,  I  am  sure  they  are  still,  in 
many  ways,  of  great  use  to  us;  and  in  former 
times  they  have  been  of  the  greatest.  They  do 
confine,  and  they  do  greatly  narrow,  the  mar- 
ket for  the  Americans;  but  my  perfect  convic- 
tion of  this  does  not  help  me  in  the  least  to 
discern  how  the  revenue  laws  form  any  secu- 
rity whatsoever  to  the  commercial  regulations, 
or  that  these  commercial  regulations  are  the 
true  ground  of  the  quarrel,  or  that  the  giving 
way,  in  any  one  instance  of  authority,  is  to 
lose  all  that  may  remain  unconceded. 

One  fact  is  clear  and  undisputable.  The 
public  and  avowed  origin  of  this  quarrel  was 
on  taxation.  This  quarrel  has  indeed  brought 
on  new  disputes  on  new  questions;  but  cer- 
tainly the  least  bitter,  and  the  fewest  of  all, 
on  the  trade  laws.  To  judge  which  of  the 
two  be  the  real  radical  cause  of  quarrel,  we 
have  to  see  whether  the  commercial  dispute 
did,  in  order  of  time,  precede  the  dispute  on 
taxation.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  evidence 
219 


®n  Conciliation  witb  America 

for  it.  Next,  to  enable  us  to  judge  whether 
at  this  moment  a  dislike  to  the  trade  laws  be 
the  real  cause  of  quarrel,  it  is  absolutely  nec- 
essary to  put  the  taxes  out  of  the  question  by 
a  repeal.  See  how  the  Americans  act  in  this 
position,  and  then  you  will  be  able  to  discern 
correctly  what  is  the  true  object  of  the  con- 
troversy, or  whether  any  controversy  at  all 
will  remain.  Unless  you  consent  to  remove 
this  cause  of  difference,  it  is  impossible,  with 
decency,  to  assert  that  the  dispute  is  not  upon 
what  it  is  avowed  to  be.  And  I  would.  Sir, 
recommend  to  your  serious  consideration 
whether  it  be  prudent  to  form  a  rule  for 
punishing  people,  not  on  their  own  acts,  but 
on  your  conjectures.-'  Surely  it  is  prepos- 
terous at  the  very  best.  It  is  not  justifying 
your  anger  by  their  misconduct,  but  it  is  con- 
verting your  ill-will  into  their  delinquency. 

But  the  Colonies  will  go  further.  Alas! 
alas!  when  will  this  speculation  against  fact 
and  reason  end  .-•  What  will  quiet  these  panic 
fears  v/hich  we  entertain  of  the  hostile  effect 
of  a  conciliatory  conduct  .-*  Is  it  true  that  no 
case  can  exist  in  which  it  is  proper  for  the 
sovereign  to  accede  to  the  desires  of  his  dis- 
contented subjects  .-•  Is  there  anything  pecul- 
iar in  this  case  to  make  a  rule  for  itself  ?     Is 

220 


©n  ConctUatlon  witb  Bmcrlca 

all  authority  of  course  lost  when  it  is  not 
pushed  to  the  extreme  ?  Is  it  a  certain  maxim 
that  the  fewer  causes  of  dissatisfaction  are  left 
by  government,  the  more  the  subject  will  be 
inclined  to  resist  and  rebel  ? 

All  these  objections  being  in  fact  no  more 
than  suspicions,  conjectures,  divinations, 
formed  in  defiance  of  fact  and  experience, 
they  did  not,  Sir,  discourage  me  from  enter- 
taining the  idea  of  a  conciliatory  concession 
founded  on  the  principles  which  I  have  just 
stated. 

In  forming  a  plan  for  this  purpose,  I  en- 
deavored to  put  myself  in  that  frame  of  mind 
which  was  the  most  natural  and  the  most 
reasonable,  and  which  was  certainly  the  most 
probable  means  of  securing  me  from  all  error. 
I  set  out  with  a  perfect  distrust  of  my  own 
abilities,  a  total  renunciation  of  every  specula- 
tion of  my  own,  and  with  a  profound  reverence 
for  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  who  have  left 
us  the  inheritance  of  so  happy  a  Constitution 
and  so  flourishing  an  empire,  and,  what  is  a 
thousand  times  more  valuable,  the  treasury  of 
the  maxims  and  principles  which  formed  the 
one  and  obtained  the  other. 

During  the  reigns  of  the  kings  of  Spain  of 
the  Austrian  family,  whenever  they  were  at  a 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmcrica 

loss  in  the  Spanish  councils,  it  was  conuiiOn 
for  their  statesmen  to  say  that  they  ought  to 
consult  the  genius  of  Philip  the  Second.  The 
genius  of  Philip  the  Second  might  mislead 
them,  and  the  issue  of  their  affairs  showed 
that  they  had  not  chosen  the  most  perfect 
standard;  but,  Sir,  I  am  sure  that  I  shall  not 
be  misled  when,  in  a  case  of  constitutional 
difficulty,  I  consult  the  genius  of  the  English 
Constitution.  Consulting  at  that  oracle  —  it 
was  with  all  due  humility  and  piety —  I  found 
four  capital  examples  in  a  similar  case  before 
me;  those  of  Ireland,  Wales,  Chester,  and 
Durham. 

Ireland,  before  the  English  conquest,  though 
never  governed  by  a  despotic  power,  had  no 
Parliament.  How  far  the  English  Parliament 
itself  was  at  that  time  modeled  according  to 
the  present  form  is  disputed  among  antiquaries; 
but  we  have  all  the  reason  in  the  world  to  be 
assured  that  a  form  of  ParHament  such  as 
England  then  enjoyed  she  instantly  com- 
municated to  Ireland,  and  we  are  equally  sure 
that  almost  every  successive  improvement  in 
constitutional  liberty,  as  fast  as  it  was  made 
here,  was  transmitted  thither.  The  feudal 
baronage  and  the  feudal  knighthood,  the  roots 
of  our  primitive  Constitution,  were  early  trans- 


©n  ConciUation  wltb  Bmerica 

planted  into  that  soil,  and  grew  and  flourished 
there.  Magna  Charta,  if  it  did  not  give  us 
originally  the  House  of  Commons,  gave  us  at 
least  a  House  of  Commons  of  w^eight  and  con- 
sequence. But  your  ancestors  did  not  churl- 
ishly sit  down  alone  to  the  feast  of  Magna 
Charta.  Ireland  w^as  made  immediately  a  par- 
taker. This  benefit  of  English  laws  and 
liberties,  I  confess,  was  not  at  first  extended 
to  all  Ireland.  Mark  the  consequence.  Eng- 
lish authority  and  English  liberties  had  exactly 
the  same  boundaries.  Your  standard  could 
never  be  advanced  an  inch  before  your  priv- 
ileges.^* Sir  John  Davis  shows  beyond  a  doubt 
that  the  refusal  of  a  general  communication 
of  these  rights  was  the  true  cause  why  Ireland 
was  five  hundred  years  in  subduing;  and  after 
the  vain  projects  of  a  military  government, 
attempted  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it 
was  soon  discovered  that  nothing  could  make 
that  country  English,  in  civility  and  allegiance, 
but  your  laws  and  your  forms  of  legislature. 
It  was  not  English  arms,  but  the  English  Con- 
stitution, that  conquered  Ireland.  From  that 
time   Ireland  has  ever  had  a  general  Parlia- 

24.  English  settlets  in  Ireland  after  the  invasion  of  Strongbow  kept 
tiiemselves,  within  certain  limits,  distinct  from  the  natives,  called  the 
**  Pale."  They  enjoyed  English  law  while  the  natives  were  denied  it. 
^^rqf&ssor  Goodrich. 

223 


©It  Concilfation  witb  America 

ment,  as  she  had  before  a  partial  ParHament. 
You  changed  the  people;  you  altered  the  re- 
ligion; but  you  never  touched  the  form  or  the 
vital  substance  of  free  government  in  that 
Kingdom.  You  deposed  kings;  you  restored 
them;  you  altered  the  succession  to  theirs,  as 
well  as  to  your  own  Crown;  but  you  never 
altered  their  Constitution,  the  principle  of 
which  was  respected  by  usurpation,  restored 
with  the  restoration  of  monarchy,  and  estab- 
lished, I  trust,  forever,  by  the  glorious  Revolu- 
tion. This  has  made  Ireland  the  great  and 
flourishing  kingdom  that  it  is,^^  and,  from  a 
disgrace  and  a  burthen  intolerable  to  this  na- 
tion, has  rendered  her  a  principal  part  of  our 
strength  and  ornament.  This  country  cannot 
be  said  to  have  ever  formally  taxed  her.  The 
irregular  things  done  in  the  confusion  of  mighty 
troubles  and  on  the  hinge  of  great  revolutions, 
even  if  all  were  done  that  is  said  to  have  been 
done,  form  no  example.  If  they  have  any 
effect  in  argument,  they  make  an  exception 
to  prove  the  rule.  None  of  your  own  liberties 
could  stand  a  moment,  if  the  casual  deviations 
from  them  at  such  times  were  suffered  to  be 
used  as  proofs  of  their  nullity.  By  the  lucra- 
tive amount  of  such  casual  breaches  in  the 

Bj.  A  somewhat  exaggerated  statmeent. 
224 


©n  Conclllatfon  wttb  Hmetfca 

constitution,  judge  what  the  stated  and  fixed 
rule  of  supply  has  been  in  that  kingdom.  Your 
Irish  pensioners  would  starve,  if  they  had  no 
other  fund  to  live  on  than  taxes  granted  by 
English  authority.  Turn  your  eyes  to  those 
popular  grants  from  whence  all  your  great 
supplies  are  come,  and  learn  to  respect  that 
only  source  of  public  wealth  in  the  British 
Empire. 

My  next  example  is  Wales.  This  country 
is  said  to  be  reduced  by  Henry  the  Third.  It 
was  said  more  truly  to  be  so  by  Edward 
the  First.  But  though  then  conquered,  it  was 
not  looked  upon  as  any  part  of  the  realm  of 
England.  Its  old  Constitution,  whatever  that 
might  have  been,  was  destroyed,  and  no  good 
one  was  substituted  in  its  place.  The  care  of 
that  tract  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Lords 
Marchers  —  a  form  of  government  of  a  very 
singular  kind;  a  strange  heterogeneous  mon- 
ster, something  between  hostility  and  govern- 
ment; perhaps  it  has  a  sort  of  resemblance, 
according  to  the  modes  of  those  terms,  to  that 
of  Commander-in-chief  at  present,  to  whom 
all  civil  power  is  granted  as  secondary.  The 
manners  of  the  Welsh  nation  followed  the 
genius  of  the  government.  The  people  were 
ferocious,  restive,  savage,  and  uncultivated; 
225 


©n  Concflfatfon  witb  Bmctfca 

sometimes  composed,  never  pacified.  Wales, 
within  itself,  was  in  perpetual  disorder,  and  it 
kept  the  frontier  of  England  in  perpetual  alarm. 
Benefits  from  it  to  the  state  there  were  none. 
Wales  was  only  known  to  England  by  incur- 
sion and  invasion. 

Sir,  during  that  state  of  things,  Parliament 
was  not  idle.  They  attempted  to  subdue  the 
fierce  spirit  of  the  Welsh  by  all  sorts  of 
rigorous  laws.  They  prohibited  by  statute 
the  sending  of  all  sorts  of  arms  into  Wales,  as 
you  prohibit  by  proclamation  (with  something 
more  of  doubt  on  the  legality)  the  sending  of 
arms  to  America.  They  disarmed  the  Welsh 
by  statute,  as  you  attempted  (but  still  with 
more  question  on  the  legality)  to  disarm  New 
England  by  an  instruction.  They  made  an 
Act  to  drag  offenders  from  Wales  into  England 
for  trial,  as  you  have  done  (but  with  more 
hardship)  with  regard  to  America.  By  an- 
other Act,  where  one  of  the  parties  was  an 
Englishman,  they  ordained  that  his  trial  should 
be  always  by  English.  They  made  Acts  to 
restrain  trade,  as  you  do;  and  they  prevented 
the  Welsh  from  the  use  of  fairs  and  markets, 
as  you  do  the  Americans  from  fisheries  and 
foreign  ports.  In  short,  when  the  Statute 
Book  was  not  quite  so  much  swelled  as  it  is 
226 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

now,  you  find  no  less  than  fifteen  acts  of  penal 
regulation  on  the  subject  of  Wales. 

Here  we  rub  our  hands. —  A  fine  body  of 
precedents  for  the  authority  of  Parliament  and 
the  use  of  it!  —  I  admit  it  fully;  and  pray  add 
likewise  to  these  precedents  that  all  the  while 
Wales  rid  this  Kingdom  like  an  incubus,  that 
it  was  an  unprofitable  and  oppressive  burthen, 
and  that  an  Englishman  traveling  in  that 
country  could  not  go  six  yards  from  the  high 
road  without  being  murdered. 

The  march  of  the  human  mind  is  slow. 
Sir,  it  was  not  until  after  two  hundred  years 
discovered  that,  by  an  eternal  law.  Providence 
had  decreed  vexation  to  violence,  and  poverty 
to  rapine.  Your  ancestors  did  however  at 
length  open  their  eyes  to  the  ill-husbandry 
of  injustice.  They  found  that  the  tyranny 
of  a  free  people  could  of  all  tyrannies  the 
least  be  endured,  and  that  laws  made  against 
a  whole  nation  were  not  the  most  effectual 
methods  of  securing  its  obedience.  Accord- 
ingly, in  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  Henry 
the  Eighth  the  course  was  entirely  altered. 
With  a  preamble  stating  the  entire  and  per- 
fect rights  of  the  Crown  of  England,  it  gave 
to  the  Welsh  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
English  subjects.  A  political  order  was  estab- 
227 


©n  ConcUfation  wltb  Hmerfca 

Hshed;  the  military  power  gave  way  to  the 
civil;  the  Marches  were  turned  into  Counties. 
But  that  a  nation  should  have  a  right  to  Eng- 
lish liberties,  and  yet  no  share  at  all  in  the 
fundamental  security  of  these  liberties  —  the 
grant  of  their  own  property —  seemed  a  thing 
so  incongruous,  that,  eight  years  after,  that  is, 
in  the  thirty-fifth  of  that  reign,  a  complete  and 
not  ill-proportioned  representation  by  counties 
and  boroughs  was  bestowed  upon  Wales  by 
Act  of  Parliament.  From  that  moment,  as 
by  a  charm,  the  tumults  subsided;  obedience 
was  restored;  peace,  order,  and  civilization 
followed  in  the  train  of  liberty.  When  the 
day-star  of  the  English  Constitution  had 
arisen  in  their  hearts,  all  was  harmony  within 
and  without  — 

' ' —  simul  alba  nautis 
Stella  refulsit, 
Defluit  saxis  agitatus  humor; 
Concidunt  venti,  fugiuntque  nubes, 
Et  minax  (quod  sic  voluere)  ponto 
Unda  recumbit."^* 

The  very  same  year  the  County  Palatine  of 
Chester  received  the  same  relief  from  its  op- 

26.  The  troubled  surge  falls  from  the  rocks,  the  winds  cease,  the  clouds 
vanish  and  the  threatening  waves  subside  in  the  seas  as  the  clear  constel- 
lation shines  forth. 

228 


©n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmerfca 

pressions  and  the  same  remedy  to  its  dis- 
orders. Before  this  time  Chester  was  little 
less  distempered  than  Wales.  The  inhabit- 
ants, without  rights  themselves,  were  the 
fittest  to  destroy  the  rights  of  others;  and 
from  thence  Richard  the  Second  drew  the 
standing  army  of  archers  with  which  for  a 
time  he  oppressed  England.  The  people  of 
Chester  applied  to  Parliament  in  a  petition 
penned  as  I  shall  read  to  you: — 

"To  the  King,  our  Sovereign  Lord,  in  most 
humble  wise  shewen  unto  your  excellent 
Majesty  the  inhabitants  of  your  Grace's 
County  Palatine  or  Chester:  (i)  That  where 
the  said  County  Palatine  of  Chester  is  and 
hath  been  always  hitherto  exempt,  excluded, 
and  separated  out  and  from  your  High  Court 
of  Parliament,  to  have  any  Knights  and 
Burgesses  within  the  said  Court;  by  reason 
whereof  the  said  inhabitants  have  hitherto 
sustained  manifold  disherisons,  losses,  and 
damages,  as  well  in  their  lands,  goods,  and 
bodies,  as  in  the  good,  civil,  and  politic  gov- 
ernance and  maintenance  of  the  commonwealth 
of  their  said  county;  (2)  And  forasmuch  as 
the  said  inhabitants  have  always  hitherto  been 
bound  by  the  Acts  and  Statutes  made  and 
ordained  by  your  said  Highness  and  your  most 
229 


®n  Conclltation  wttb  America 

noble  progenitors,  by  authority  of  the  said 
Court,  as  far  forth  as  other  counties,  cities, 
and  boroughs  have  been,  that  have  had  their 
Knights  and  Burgesses  within  your  said  Court 
of  Parliament,  and  yet  have  had  neither 
Knight  ne  Burgess  there  for  the  said  County 
Palatine  ;  the  said  inhabitants  for  lack  thereof, 
have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved 
with  Acts  and  Statutes  made  within  the  said 
Court,  as  well  derogatory  unto  the  most 
ancient  jurisdictions,  liberties,  and  privileges 
of  your  said  County  Palatine,  as  prejudicial 
unto  the  commonwealth,  quietness,  rest,  and 
peace  of  your  Grace's  most  bounden  subjects 
inhabiting  within  the  same." 

What  did  Parliament  with  this  audacious 
address?  —  Reject  it  as  a  libel?  Treat  it  as 
an  affront  to  Government?  Spurn  it  as  a 
derogation  from  the  rights  of  legislature  ?  Did 
they  toss  it  over  the  table  ?  Did  they  burn  it 
by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman  ?  They 
took  the  petition  of  grievance,  all  rugged  as 
it  was,  without  softening  or  temperament, 
unpurged  of  the  original  bitterness  and  indig- 
nation of  complaint  —  they  made  it  the  very 
preamble  to  their  Act  of  Redress,  and  conse- 
crated its  principle  to  all  ages  in  the  sanctuary 
of  legislation. 

230 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

Here  is  my  third  example.  It  was  attended 
with  the  success  of  the  two  former.  Chester, 
civilized  as  well  as  Wales,  has  demonstrated 
that  freedom,  and  not  servitude,  is  the  cure  of 
anarchy  ;  as  religion,  and  not  atheism,  is  the 
true  remedy  for  superstition.  Sir,  this  pattern 
of  Chester  was  followed  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second  with  regard  to  the  County  Palatine 
of  Durham,  which  is  my  fourth  example.  This 
county  had  long  lain  out  of  the  pale  of  free 
legislation.  So  scrupulously  was  the  example 
of  Chester  followed  that  the  style  of  the  pre- 
amble is  nearly  the  same  with  that  of  the 
Chester  Act  ;  and,  without  affecting  the  ab- 
stract extent  of  the  authority  of  Parliament, 
it  recognizes  the  equity  of  not  suffering  any 
considerable  district  in  which  the  British  sub- 
jects may  act  as  a  body,  to  be  taxed  without 
their  own  voice  in  the  grant. 

Now  if  the  doctrines  of  policy  contained  in 
these  preambles,  and  the  force  of  these 
examples  in  the  Acts  of  Parliaments,  avail 
anything,  what  can  be  said  against  applying 
them  with  regard  to  America  ?  Are  not  the 
people  of  America  as  much  Englishmen  as  the 
Welsh  ?  The  preamble  of  the  Act  of  Henry 
the  Eighth  says  the  Welsh  speak  a  language 
no  way    resembling    that    of    his    Majesty's 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

English  subjects.  Are  the  Americans  not  as 
numerous  ?  If  we  may  trust  the  learned  and 
accurate  Judge  Barrington's  account  of  North 
Wales,  and  take  that  as  a  standard  to  measure 
the  rest,  there  is  no  comparison.  The  people 
cannot  amount  to  above  200,000;  not  a  tenth 
part  of  the  number  in  the  Colonies.  Is  America 
in  rebellion  ?  Wales  was  hardly  ever  free  from 
it.  Have  you  attempted  to  govern  America 
by  penal  statutes  ?  You  made  fifteen  for 
Wales.  But  your  legislative  authority  is 
perfect  with  regard  to  America.  Was  it  less 
perfect  in  Wales,  Chester,  and  Durham  .''  But 
America  is  virtually  represented.  What !  does 
the  electric  force  of  virtual  representation 
more  easily  pass  over  the  Atlantic  than  per- 
vade Wales,  which  lies  in  your  neighborhood 
—  or  than  Chester  and  Durham,  surrounded 
by  abundance  of  representation  that  is  actual 
and  palpable?  But,  Sir,  your  ancestors 
thought  this  sort  of  virtual  representation, 
however  ample,  to  be  totally  insufficient  for 
the  freedom  of  the  inhabitants  of  territories 
that  are  so  near,  and  comparatively  so  incon- 
siderable. How  then  can  I  think  it  sufficient 
for  those  which  are  infinitely  greater,  and 
infinitely   more   remote. 

You  will  now,  Sir,  perhaps  imagine  that  I 
232 


©n  Concilfatlon  wltb  amerfca 

am  on  the  point  of  proposing  to  you  a  scheme 
for  a  representation  of  the  Colonies  in  Parlia- 
ment. Perhaps  I  might  be  inclined  to  enter- 
tain some  such  thought;  but  a  great  flood  stops 
me  in  my  course.  Opposiiit  natiira.'^'^  —  I 
cannot  remove  the  eternal  barriers  of  the 
creation.  The  thing,  in  that  mode,  I  do  not 
know  to  be  possible.  As  I  meddle  with  no 
theory,  I  do  not  absolutely  assert  the  imprac- 
ticability of  such  a  representation;  but  I  do 
not  see  my  way  to  it,  and  those  who  have 
been  more  confident  have  not  been  more  suc- 
cessful. However,  the  arm  of  public  benevo- 
lence is  not  shortened,  and  there  are  often 
several  means  to  the  same  end.  What  nature 
has  disjoined  in  one  way,  wisdom  may  unite 
in  another.  When  we  cannot  give  the  benefit 
as  we  would  wish,  let  us  not  refuse  it  alto- 
gether. If  we  cannot  give  the  principal,  let 
us  find  a  substitute.  But  how }  Where  t  What 
substitute } 

Fortunately  I  am  not  obliged,  for  the  ways 
and  means  of  this  substitute,  to  tax  my  own 
unproductive  invention.  I  am  not  even  obliged 
to  go  to  the  rich  treasury  of  the  fertile  fram- 
ers  of  imaginary  commonwealths —  not  to 
the  Republic   of   Plato,  not  to  the   Utopia  of 

27.  Nature  opposes  it. 


©n  ConctUation  witb  America 

More,  not  to  the  Oceana  of  Harrington.  It 
is  before  me  — it  is  at  my  feet, 

' '  And  the  rude  swain 
Treads   daily  on    it  with  his  clouted  shoon." 

I  only  wish  you  to  recognize,  for  the  theory, 
the  ancient  constitutional  policy  of  this  king- 
dom with  regard  to  representation,  as  that 
policy  has  been  declared  in  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment; and  as  to  the  practice,  to  return  to  that 
mode  which  a  uniform  experience  has  marked 
out  to  you  as  best,  and  in  which  you  walked 
with  security,  advantage*,  and  honor,  until  the 
year  1763. 

My  resolutions  therefore  mean  to  establish 
the  equity  and  justice  of  a  taxation  of  Amer- 
ica by  grant,  and  not  by  imposition ;  to  mark 
the  legal  competency  of  the  Colony  Assemblies 
for  the  support  of  their  government  in  peace, 
and  for  public  aids  in  time  of  war;  to  acknowl- 
edge that  this  legal  competency  has  had  a 
dntifiil  and  beneficial  exercise ;  and  that  ex- 
perience has  shown  the  benefit  of  their  grants, 
2in^  the  futility  of  Parliamentary  taxation  as 
a  method  of  supply. 

These  solid  truths  compose  six  fundamental 
propositions.  There  are  three  more  resolu- 
tions corollary  to  these.  If  you  admit  the  first 
234 


®n  ConctUatlon  witb  Bmerlca 

set,  you  can  hardly  reject  the  others.  But  if 
you  admit  the  first,  I  shall  be  far  from  solicit- 
ous whether  you  accept  or  refuse  the  last. 
I  think  these  six  massive  pillars  will  be  of 
strength  sufficient  to  support  the  temple  of 
British  concord.  I  have  no  more  doubt  than 
I  entertain  of  my  existence  that,  if  you  ad- 
mitted these,  you  would  command  an  imme- 
diate peace,  and,  with  but  tolerable  future 
management,  a  lasting  obedience  in  America. 
I  am  not  arrogant  in  this  confident  assurance. 
The  propositions  are  all  mere  matters  of  fact, 
and  if  they  are  such  facts  as  draw  irresistible 
conclusions  even  in  the  stating,  this  is  the  power 
of  truth,  and  not  any  management  of  mine. 

Sir,  I  shall  open  the  whole  plan  to  you, 
together  with  such  observations  on  the 
motions  as  may  tend  to  illustrate  them  where 
they  may  want  explanation.  The  first  is  a 
resolution  — 

"That  the  Colonies  and  Plantations  of 
Great  Britain  in  North  America,  consisting  of 
fourteen  separate  Governments,  and  contain- 
ing two  millions  and  upwards  of  free  inhabit- 
ants, have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege 
of  electing  and  sending  any  Knights  and 
Burgesses,  or  others,  to  represent  them  in 
the  High  Court  of    Parliament." 

?35 


©n  Cnnctllatlon  witb  Bmerica 

This  is  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  necessary  to 
be  laid  down,  and,  excepting  the  description, 
it  is  laid  down  in  the  language  of  the  Consti- 
tution ;  it  is  taken  nearly  verbatim  from  acts 
of  Parliament. 

The  second  is  like  unto  the  first  — 

"That  the  said  Colonies  and  Plantations 
have  been  liable  to,  and  bounden  by,  several 
subsidies,  payments,  rates,  and  taxes  given 
and  granted  by  Parliament,  though  the  said 
Colonies  and  Plantations  have  not  their 
Knights  and  Burgesses  in  the  said  High  Court 
of  Parliament,  of  their  own  election,  to  repre- 
sent the  condition  of  their  country;  by  lack 
whereof  they  have  been  oftentimes  touched 
and  grieved  by  subsidies  given,  granted,  and 
assented  to,  in  the  said  Court,  in  a  manner 
prejudicial  to  the  commonwealth,  quietness, 
rest,  and  peace  of  the  subjects  inhabiting 
within  the  same." 

Is  this  description  too  hot,  or  too  cold;  too 
strong,  or  too  weak  ?  Does  it  arrogate  too 
much  to  the  supreme  legislature  ?  Does  it 
lean  too  much  to  the  claims  of  the  people  ? 
If  it  runs  into  any  of  these  errors,  the  fault  is 
not  mine.  It  is  the  language  of  your  own 
ancient  Acts  of  Parliament. 
236 


©n  Conciliation  witb  America 

* '  Non  meus  hie  sermo,  sed  quae  praecepit  Of ellus, 

Rusticus,  abnormis  sapiens.  "^^ 

It  is  the  genuine  product  of  the  ancient, 
rustic,  manly,  homebred  sense  of  this  country. 
—  I  did  not  dare  to  rub  off  a  particle  of  the 
venerable  rust  that  rather  adorns  and  preserves, 
than  destroys,  the  metal.  It  would  be  a 
profanation  to  touch  with  a  tool  the  stones 
which  construct  this  sacred  altar  of  peace.  I 
would  not  violate  with  modern  polish  the  in- 
genuous and  noble  roughness  of  these  truly 
constitutional  materials.  Above  all  things,  I 
was  resolved  not  to  be  guilty  of  tampering, 
the  odious  vice  of  restless  and  unstable  minds. 
I  put  my  foot  in  the  tracks  of  our  forefathers, 
where  I  can  neither  wander  nor  stumble. 
Determining  to  fix  articles  of  peace,  I  was 
resolved  not  to  be  wise  beyond  what  was 
written;  I  was  resolved  to  use  nothing  else 
than  the  form  of  sound  words,  to  let  others 
abound  in  their  own  sense,  and  carefully  to 
abstain  from  all  expressions  of  my  own. 
What  the  law  has  said,  I  say.  In  all  things 
else  I  am  silent.  I  have  no  organ  but  for 
her  words.  This,  if  it  be  not  ingenious,  I  am 
sure  is  safe. 


28.    This  IS  no  creed  of  mine,  but  what  Ofellus  the  peasant  philoso< 
pher  taught  me. 


®n  doncilfation  wltb  america 

There  are  indeed  words  expressive  of  griev- 
ance in  this  second  resolution,  which  those 
who  are  resolved  always  to  be  in  the  right 
will  deny  to  contain  matter  of  fact,  as  applied 
to  the  present  case,  although  Parliament 
thought  them  true  with  regard  to  the  counties 
of  Chester  and  Durham.  They  will  deny  that 
the  Americans  were  ever  "touched  and 
grieved"  with  the  taxes.  If  they  consider 
nothing  in  taxes  but  their  weight  as  pecuniary 
impositions,  there  might  be  some  pretense  for 
this  denial;  but  men  may  be  sorely  touched 
and  deeply  grieved  in  their  privileges,  as  well 
as  in  their  purses.  Men  may  lose  little  in 
property  by  the  act  which  takes  away  all 
their  freedom.  When  a  man  is  robbed  of  a 
trifle  on  the  highway,  it  is  not  the  two-pence 
lost  that  constitutes  the  capital  outrage.  This 
is  not  confined  to  privileges.  Even  ancient 
indulgences,  withdrawn  without  offense  on  the 
part  of  those  who  enjoyed  such  favors,  operate 
as  grievances.  But  were  the  Americans  then 
not  touched  and  grieved  by  the  taxes,  in  some 
measure,  merely  as  taxes .''  If  so,  why  were 
they  almost  all  either  wholly  repealed,  or  ex- 
ceedingly reduced.''  Were  they  not  touched 
and  grieved  even  by  the  regulating  duties  of 
the  sixth  of  George  the  Second  ?     Else,  why 

238 


®n  Conciliation  wltb  Bmerfca 

were  the  duties  first  reduced  to  one-third  in 
1764,  and  afterwards  to  a  third  of  that  third 
in  the  year  1766?  Were  they  not  touched 
and  grieved  by  the  Stamp  Act  ?  I  shall  say 
they  were,  until  that  tax  is  revived.  Were 
they  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the  duties  of 
1767,  which  were  likewise  repealed,  and  which 
Lord  Hillsborough  tells  you,  for  the  Ministry, 
were  laid  contrary  to  the  true  principle  of 
commerce  ?  Is  not  the  assurance  given  by 
that  noble  person  to  the  Colonies  of  a  resolu- 
tion to  lay  no  more  taxes  on  them  an  admis- 
sion that  taxes  would  touch  and  grieve  them  ? 
Is  not  the  resolution  of  the  noble  lord  in  the 
blue  ribbon,  now  standing  on  your  Journals, 
the  strongest  of  all  proofs  that  Parliamentary 
subsidies  really  touched  and  grieved  them  ? 
Else  why  all  these  changes,  modifications, 
repeals,  assurances,  and  resolutions  ? 

The  next  proposition  is  — 

"That,  from  the  distance  of  the  said  Colo- 
nies, and  from  other  circumstances,  no  method 
had  hitherto  been  devised  for  procuring  a 
representation  in  Parliament  for  the  said 
Colonies." 

This  is  an  assertion  of  a  fact.  I  go  no 
further  on  the  paper,  though,  in  my  private 
judgment,  a  useful  representation  is  impossi- 

239 


®n  Concflfatfon  wftb  Bmerfca 

ble  —  I  am  sure  it  is  not  desired  by  them,  nor 
ought  it  perhaps  by  us  —  but  I  abstain  from 
opinions. 

The  fourth  resolution  is  — 

"That  each  of  the  said  Colonies  hath 
within  itself  a  body,  chosen  in  part,  or  in  the 
whole,  by  the  freemen,  freeholders,  or  other 
free  inhabitants  thereof,  commonly  called  che 
General  Assembly,  or  General  Court,  with 
powers  legally  to  raise,  levy,  and  assess,  ac- 
cording to  the  several  usage  of  such  Colonies, 
duties  and  taxes  towards  defraying  all  sorts  of 
public  services." 

This  competence  in  the  Colony  Assemblies 
is  certain.  It  is  proved  by  the  whole  tenor  of 
their  Acts  of  Supply  in  all  the  Assemblies,  in 
which  the  constant  style  of  granting  is,  "an 
aid  to  his  Majesty;"  and  Acts  granting  to  the 
Crown  have  regularly  for  nearly  a  century 
passed  the  public  offices  without  dispute. 
Those  who  have  been  pleased  paradoxically  to 
deny  this  right,  holding  that  none  but  the 
British  Parliament  can  grant  to  the  Crown, 
are  wished  to  look  to  what  is  done,  not  only 
in  the  Colonies,  but  in  Ireland,  in  one  uni- 
form unbroken  tenor  every  session.  Sir,  I 
am  surprised  that  this  doctrine  should  come 
from  some  of  the  law  servants  of  the  Crown. 
240 


®n  Conciliation  witb  "Bmcvica. 

I  say  that  if  the  Crown  could  be  responsible, 
his  Majesty,  —  but  certainly  the  Ministers, — 
and  even  these  law  officers  themselves  through 
whose  hands  the  Acts  passed,  biennially  in 
Ireland,  or  annually  in  the  Colonies  —  are  in 
an  habitual  course  of  committing  impeachable 
offenses.  What  habitual  offenders  have  been 
all  Presidents  of  the  Council,  all  Secretaries 
of  State,  all  First  Lords  of  Trade,  all  Attor- 
neys and  all  Solicitors-General  !  However, 
they  are  safe,  as  no  one  impeaches  them;  and 
there  is  no  ground  of  charge  against  them 
except  in  their  own  unfounded  theories. 

The  fifth  resolution  is  also  a  resolution  of 
fact  — 

"That  the  said  General  Assemblies,  Gen- 
eral Courts,  or  other  bodies  legally  qualified 
as  aforesaid,  have  at  sundry  times  freely 
granted  several  large  subsidies  and  public  aids 
for  his  Majesty's  service,  according  to  their 
abilities,  when  required  thereto  by  letter  from 
one  of  his  Majesty's  principal  Secretaries  of 
State;  and  that  their  right  to  grant  the  same, 
and  their  cheerfulness  and  sufficiency  in  the 
said  grants,  have  been  at  sundry  times  ac- 
knowledged   by  Parliament." 

To  say  nothing  of  their  great  expenses  in 
the  Indian  wars,  and  not  to  take  their  exer- 
241 


©n  Conclliatfon  witb  Bmetica 

tion  in  foreign  ones  so  high  as  the  supplies  in 
the  year  1695  —  not  to  go  back  to  their 
pubHc  contributions  in  the  year  17 10  —  I  shall 
begin  to  travel  only  where  the  journals  give 
me  light,  resolving  to  deal  in  nothing  but 
fact,  authenticated  by  Parliamentary  record, 
and  to  build  myself  wholly  on  that  solid 
basis. 

On  the  4th  of  April,  1748,  a  committee  of 
this  House  came  to  the  following  resolution: 

"Resolved:  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this 
Committee  that  it  is  just  and  reasonable  that 
the  several  Provinces  and  Colonies  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut, 
and  Rhode  Island  be  reimbursed  the  expenses 
they  have  been  at  in  taking  and  securing  to 
the  Crown  of  Great  Britain  the  Island  of 
Cape  Breton  and  its  dependencies." 

The  expenses  were  immense  for  such  Col- 
onies. They  were  above  ;^200,ooo  sterling; 
money  first  raised  and  advanced  on  their  pub- 
lic credit. 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1756,  a  message 
from  the  King  came  to  us,  to  this  effect: 

"His  Majesty,  being  sensible  of  the  zeal 
and  vigor  with  which  his  faithful  subjects  of 
certain  Colonies  in  North  America  have  ex- 
erted themselves  in  defense  of  his  Majesty's 
242 


®n  Concdiatfon  wltb  :amerlca 

just  rights  and  possessions,  recommends  it 
to  this  House  to  take  the  same  into  their 
consideration,  and  to  enable  his  Majesty  to 
give  them  such  assistance  as  may  be  a  proper 
reward  and  encouragement." 

On  the  3d  of  February,  1756,  the  House 
came  to  a  suitable  resolution,  expressed  in 
words  nearly  the  same  as  those  of  the  mes- 
sage, but  with  the  further  addition,  that  the 
money  then  voted  was  as  an  encouragement 
to  the  Colonies  to  exert  themselves  with  vigor. 
It  will  not  be  necessary  to  go  through  all  the 
testimonies  which  your  own  records  have  given 
to  the  truth  of  my  resolutions.  I  will  only 
refer  you  to  the  places  in  the  Journals : 

Vol.  xxvii, —  1 6th  and  19th  May,  1757. 
Vol.  xxviii. — June   ist,  1758;  April  26th 

and  30th,  1759;  March  26th  and 

31st,  and  April  28th,  1760;  Jan. 

9th  and  20th,  1 76 1. 
Vol.   xxix.  —  Jan.    22d   and    26th,    1762; 

March  14th  and  17th,  1763. 

Sir,  here  is  the  repeated  acknowledgment 
of  Parliament  that  the  colonies  not  only  gave, 
but  gave  to  satiety.  This  nation  has  formally 
acknowledged  two  things:  first,  that  the  Colo- 
nies had  gone   beyond  their  abilities,   Parlia- 

243 


®n  ConculaUon  wltb  Bmcrlca 

ment  having  thought  it  necessary  to  reimburse 
them;  secondly,  that  they  had  acted  legally 
and  laudably  in  their  grants  of  money,  and 
their  maintenance  of  troops,  since  the  com- 
pensation is  expressly  given  as  reward  and  en- 
couragement. Reward  is  not  bestowed  for 
acts  that  are  unlawful;  and  encouragement  is 
not  held  out  to  things  that  deserve  reprehen- 
sion. My  resolution  therefore  does  nothing 
more  than  collect  into  one  proposition  what  is 
scattered  through  your  Journals.  I  give  you 
nothing  but  your  own;  and  you  cannot  refuse 
in  the  gross  what  you  have  so  often  acknowl- 
edged in  detail.  The  admission  of  this, 
which  will  be  so  honorable  to  them  and  to 
you,  will,  indeed,  be  mortal  to  all  the  mis- 
erable stories  by  which  the  passions  of  the 
misguided  people  have  been  engaged  in  an 
unhappy  system.  The  people  heard,  indeed, 
from  the  beginning  of  these  disputes,  one 
thing  continually  dinned  in  their  ears,  that 
reason  and  justice  demanded  that  the  Ameri- 
cans, who  paid  no  taxes,  should  be  compelled 
to  contribute.  How  did  that  fact  of  their 
paying  nothing  stand  when  the  taxing  system 
began.?  When  Mr.  Grenville  began  to  form 
his  system  of  American  revenue,  he  stated  in 
this  house  that  the  Colonies  were  then  in  debt 
244 


®n  ConciUatfon  witb  Bmertca 

two  millions  six  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling  money,  and  was  of  opinion  they  woul(f 
discharge  that  debt  in  four  years.  On  this 
statement,  those  untaxed  people  were  actually 
subject  to  the  payment  of  taxes  to  the  amount 
of  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  a  year.  In 
fact,  however,  Mr.  Grenville  was  mistaken. 
The  funds  given  for  sinking  the  debt  did  not 
prove  quite  so  ample  as  both  the  Colonies  and 
he  expected.  The  calculation  was  too  san- 
guine; the  reduction  was  not  completed  till 
some  years  after,  and  at  different  times  in  dif- 
ferent Colonies.  However,  the  taxes  after  the 
war  continued  too  great  to  bear  any  addition, 
with  prudence  or  propriety;  and  when  the 
burthens  imposed  in  consequence  of  former 
requisitions  were  discharged,  our  tone  became 
too  high  to  resort  again  to  requisition.  No 
Colony,  since  that  time,  ever  has  had  any 
requisition  whatsoever  made  to  it. 

We  see  the  sense  of  the  Crown,  and  the 
sense  of  Parliament,  on  the  productive  nature 
of  a  I'cvcmie  by  grant.  Now  search  the  same 
Journals  for  the  produce  of  the  revenue  by  im- 
position. Where  is  it  "i  Let  us  know  the  vol- 
ume and  the  page.  What  is  the  gross,  what 
is  the  net  produce  ?  To  what  service  is  it  ap- 
plied?     How  have  you  appropriated  its  sur- 

245 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

plus  ?  What !  Can  none  of  the  many  skillful 
index-makers  that  we  are  now  employing  find 
any  trace  of  it? — Well,  let  them  and  that  rest 
together.  But  are  the  Journals,  which  say 
nothing  of  the  revenue,  as  silent  on  the  dis- 
content ?  Oh  no  !  a  child  may  find  it.  It  is 
the  melancholy  burthen  and  blot  of  every  page. 

I  think,  then,  I  am,  from  those  Journals, 
justified  in  the  sixth  and  last  resolution,  which 
is  — 

' '  That  it  hath  been  found  by  experience 
that  the  manner  of  granting  the  said  supplies 
and  aids,  by  the  said  General  Assemblies,  hath 
been  more  agreeable  to  the  said  Colonies,  and 
more  beneficial  and  conducive  to  the  public 
service,  than  the  mode  of  giving  and  granting 
aids  in  Parliament,  to  be  raised  and  paid  in 
the  said  Colonies." 

This  makes  the  whole  of  the  fundamental 
part  of  the  plan.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible. 
You  cannot  say  that  you  were  driven  by  any 
necessity  to  an  exercise  of  the  utmost  rights 
of  legislature.  You  cannot  assert  that  you 
took  on  yourself  the  task  of  imposing  Colony 
taxes  from  the  want  of  another  legal  body 
that  is  competent  to  the  purpose  of  supplying 
the  exigencies  of  the  state  without  wounding 
the  prejudices  of  the  people.  Neither  is  it 
246 


©n  Concilfatlon  witb  Bmerica 

true  that  the  body  so  quahfied,  and  having 
that  competence,  had  neglected  the  duty. 

The  question  now,  on  all  this  accumulated 
matter,  is  :  whether  you  will  choose  to  abide 
by  a  profitable  experience,  or  a  mischievous 
theory;  whether  you  choose  to  build  on  im- 
agination, or  fact;  whether  you  prefer  enjoy- 
ment, or  hope;  satisfaction  in  your  subjects, 
or  discontent  ? 

If  these  propositions  are  accepted,  every- 
thing which  has  been  made  to  enforce  a  con- 
trary system  must,  I  take  it  for  granted,  fall 
along  with  it.  On  that  ground,  I  have  drawn 
the  following  resolution,  which,  when  it  comes 
to  be  moved,  will  naturally  be  divided  in  a 
proper  manner  : 

' '  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act 
made  in  the  seventh  year  of  the  reign  of  his 
present  Majesty,  entitled,  An  Act  for  granting 
certain  duties  in  the  British  Colonies  and 
Plantations  in  America;  for  allowing  a  draw- 
back of  the  duties  of  customs  upon  the  ex- 
portation from  this  Kingdom  of  coffee  and 
cocoa-nuts  of  the  produce  of  the  said  Colonies 
or  Plantations;  for  discontinuing  the  draw- 
backs payable  on  china  earthenware  exported 
to  America;  and  for  more  effectually  prevent- 
ing the  clandestine  running  of  goods  in  the 
247 


©n  Concllfatfon  wltb  Bmerfca 

said  Colonies  and  Plantations.  And  that  it 
may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act  made  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present 
Majesty,  entitled,  An  Act  to  discontinue,  in 
such  manner  and  for  such  time  as  are  therein 
mentioned,  the  landing  and  discharging,  lad- 
ing or  shipping  of  goods,  wares,  and  merchan- 
dise at  the  town  and  within  the  harbor  of 
Boston,  in  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
in  North  America.  And  that  it  may  be  proper 
to  repeal  an  Act  made  in  the  fourteenth  year 
of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  entitled, 
An  Act  for  the  impartial  administration  of 
justice  in  the  cases  of  persons  questioned  for 
any  acts  done  by  them  in  the  execution  of  the 
law,  or  for  the  suppression  of  riots  and  tumults, 
in  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New 
England.  And  that  it  may  be  proper  to  re- 
peal an  Act  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of 
the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  entitled,  An 
Act  for  the  better  regulating  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Province  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay,  in  New  England.  And  also  that  it  may 
be  proper  to  explain  and  amend  an  Act  made 
in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  the  reign  of  King 
Henry  the  Eighth,  entitled.  An  Act  for  the 
Trial  of  Treasons  committed  out  of  the  King's 
Dominions." 

248 


©n  ConclUation  wltb  Hmerlca 

I  wish,  Sir,  to  repeal  the  Boston  Port  Bill, 
because  —  independently  of  the  dangerous 
precedent  of  suspending  the  rights  of  the  sub- 
ject during  the  King's  pleasure  —  it  was  passed, 
as  I  apprehend,  with  less  regularity  and  on 
more  partial  principles  than  it  ought.  The 
corporation  of  Boston  was  not  heard  before  it 
was  condemned.  Other  towns,  full  as  guilty 
as  she  was,  have  not  had  their  ports  blocked 
up.  Even  the  Restraining  Bill  of  the  present 
session  does  not  go  to  the  length  of  the  Boston 
Port  Act.  The  same  ideas  of  prudence  which 
induced  you  not  to  extend  equal  punishment 
to  equal  guilt,  even  when  you  were  punishing, 
induced  me,  who  mean  not  to  chastise,  but  to 
reconcile,  to  be  satisfied  with  the  punishment 
already  partially  inflicted. 

Ideas  of  prudence  and  accommodation  to 
circumstances  prevent  you  from  taking  away 
the  charters  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island, 
as  you  have  taken  away  that  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  though  the  Crown  has  far  less  power  in 
the  two  former  provinces  than  it  enjoyed  in 
the  latter,  and  though  the  abuses  have  been 
full  as  great,  and  as  flagrant,  in  the  exempted 
as  in  the  punished.  The  same  reasons  of 
prudence  and  accommodation  have  weight 
with  me  in  restoring  the  charter  of  Massachu- 
249 


On  Conclllat(on  witb  Bmerfca 

setts  Bay.  Besides,  Sir,  the  Act  which 
changes  the  charter  of  Massachusetts  is  in 
many  particulars  so  exceptionable  that  if  I  did 
not  wish  absolutely  to  repeal,  I  would  by  all 
means  desire  to  alter  it,  as  several  of  its  pro- 
visions tend  to  the  subversion  of  all  public  and 
private  justice.  Such,  among  others,  is  the 
power  in  the  Governor  to  change  the  sheriff 
at  his  pleasure,  and  to  make  a  new  returning 
officer  for  every  special  cause.  It  is  shameful 
to  behold  such  a  regulation  standing  among 
English  laws. 

The  Act  for  bringing  persons  accused  of 
committing  murder,  under  the  orders  of  Govern- 
ment to  England  for  trial,  is  but  temporary. 
That  Act  has  calculated  the  probable  duration 
of  our  quarrel  with  the  Colonies,  and  is  ac- 
commodated to  that  supposed  duration.  I 
would  hasten  the  happy  moment  of  reconcilia- 
tion, and  therefore  must,  on  my  principle,  get 
rid  of  that  most  justly  obnoxious  Act. 

The  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  the  Trial 
of  Treasons,  I  do  not  mean  to  take  away,  but 
to  confine  it  to  its  proper  bounds  and  original 
intention;  to  make  it  expressly  for  trial  of 
treasons  —  and  the  greatest  treasons  may  be 
committed — in  places  where  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Crown  does  not  extend. 
250 


®n  Conciliation  witb  Bmecica 

Having  guarded  the  privileges  of  local  legis- 
lature, I  would  next  secure  to  the  Colonies  a 
fair  and  unbiased  judicature,  for  which  purpose, 
Sir,  I  propose  the  following  resolution: 

"That,  from  the  time  when  the  General 
Assembly  or  General  Court  of  any  Colony  or 
Plantation  in  North  America  shall  have  ap- 
pointed by  Act  of  Assembly,  duly  confirmed, 
a  settled  salary  to  the  offices  of  the  Chief 
Justice  and  other  Judges  of  the  Superior 
Court,  it  may  be  proper  that  the  said  Chief 
Justice  and  other  Judges  of  the  Superior 
Courts  of  such  Colony  shall  hold  his  and  their 
office  and  offices  during  their  good  behavior, 
and  shall  not  be  removed  therefrom  but 
when  the  said  removal  shall  be  adjudged  by 
his  Majesty  in  Council,  upon  a  hearing  on 
complaint  from  the  General  Assembly,  or  a 
complaint  from  the  Governor,  or  Council,  or 
the  House  of  Representatives  severally,  or  of 
the  Colony  in  which  the  said  Chief  Justice  and 
other  Judges  have  exercised  the  said  offices." 
The  next  resolution  relates  to  the  Courts  of 
Admiralty.      It  is  this: 

' '  That  it  may  be  proper  to  regulate  the 
Courts  of  Admiralty  or  Vice-Admiralty  author- 
ized by  the  Fifteenth  Chapter  of  the  Fourth  of 
George  the  Third,   in  such  a  manner   as   to 

251 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Smetlca 

make  the  same  more  commodious  to  those 
who  sue,  or  are  sued,  in  the  said  Courts,  and 
to  provide  for  the  more  decent  maintenance 
of  the  Judges  in  the  same." 

These  courts  I  do  not  wish  to  take  away; 
they  are  in  themselves  proper  estabhshments. 
This  court  is  one  of  the  capital  securities  of 
the  Act  of  Navigation.  The  extent  of  its 
jurisdiction,  indeed,  has  been  increased,  but 
this  is  altogether  as  proper,  and  is  indeed 
on  many  accounts  more  eligible,  where  new 
powers  were  wanted,  than  a  court  absolutely 
new.  But  courts  incommodiously  situated, 
in  effect,  deny  justice;  and  a  court  partaking 
in  the  fruits  of  its  own  condemnation  is  a 
robber.  The  Congress  complain,  and  com- 
plain justly,  of  this  grievance. 

These  are  the  three  consequential  proposi- 
tions. I  have  thought  of  two  or  three  more, 
but  they  come  rather  too  near  detail,  and  to 
the  province  of  executive  government,  which 
I  wish  Parliament  always  to  superintend, 
never  to  assume.  If  the  first  six  are  granted, 
congruity  will  carry  the  latter  three.  If  not, 
the  things  that  remain  unrepealed  will  be,  I 
hope,  rather  unseemly  incumbrances  on  the 
building,  than  very  materially  detrimental  to 
its  strength  and  stability. 
252 


©n  Conciliation  witb  America 

Here,  Sir,  I  should  close;  but  I  plainly  per- 
ceive some  objections  remain  which  I  ought, 
if  possible,  to  remove. 


[Here  Burke  answers  the  objection  that  the 
colonies  will  abuse  the  privileges  given  them  and 
throw  off  their  allegiance.  His  central  idea  is  in 
the  words:  "In  every  arduous  enterprise  we  con- 
sider what  we  are  to  lose,  as  well  as  what  we  are 
to  gain;  and  the  more  and  better  stake  of  liberty 
every  people  possess,  the  less  they  will  hazard  in 
a  vain  attempt  to  make  it  more.  These  are  the 
cords  of  man.  Man  acts  from  adequate  motives 
relative  to  his  interest,  and  not  on  metaphysical 
speculations." 

He  then  proceeds  to  criticise  and  to  overthrow 
by  a  series  of  arguments  a  proposition  that  had 
recently  been  brought  forward  by  Lord  North. 
This  discussion  would  extend  over  several  printed 
pages  and  is  the  only  considerable  omission  we 
make.  In  the  end  he  compares  his  plan  with 
Lord  North's  in  these  words: 

"This  I  offer  to  give  you  is  plain  and  simple; 
the  other  full  of  perplexed  and  intricate  mazes. 
This  is  mild;  that  is  harsh.  This  is  found  by 
experience  effectual  for  its  purposes;  the  other  is 
a  new  project.  This  is  universal;  the  other  calcu- 
lated for  certain  Colonies  only.     This   is  imme- 

253 


®n  Concllfation  wltb  Bmerlca 

diate  in.  its  conciliatory  operation;  the  other 
remote,  contingent,  full  of  hazard.  Mine  is  what 
becomes  the  dignity  of  a  feeling  people  —  gratui- 
tous, unconditional,  and  not  held  out  as  a  matter 
of  bargain  and  sale."] 

But  what,  says  the  financier,  is  peace  to  us 
without  money  .-*  Your  plan  gives  us  no  reve- 
nue. No!  but  it  does;  for  it  secures  to  the 
subject  the  power  of  refusal,  the  first  of  all 
revenues.  Experience  is  a  cheat,  and  fact  a 
liar,  if  this  power  in  the  subject  of  proportion- 
ing his  grant,  or  of  not  granting  at  all,  has  not 
been  found  the  richest  mine  of  revenue  ever 
discovered  by  the  skill  or  by  the  fortune  of  man. 
It  does  not  indeed  vote  you  152,750/.  11^. 
2%d.y  nor  any  other  paltry  limited  sum;  but  it 
gives  the  strongbox  itself,  the  fund,  the  bank- — 
from  whence  only  revenues  can  arise  amongst 
a  people  sensible  of  freedom.  Posita  luditiir 
aj'ca.^^  Cannot  you,  in  England  —  cannot  you, 
at  this  time  of  day  —  cannot  you,  a  House  of 
Commons,  trust  to  the  principle  which  has  raised 
so  mighty  a  revenue,  and  accumulated  a  debt 
of  near  140,000,000/.  in  this  country  .-^  Is  this 
principle   to   be    true    in    England,   and  false 


29.  With  one's  whole  cash-box  at  stake  —  an  allusion  to  excesses  In 
gambling. 


©n  ConclKatfon  wltb  Bmertca 

everywhere  else  ?  Is  it  not  true  in  Ireland  ? 
Has  it  not  hitherto  been  true  in  the  Colonies  ? 
Why  should  you  presume  that,  in  any  country, 
a  body  duly  constituted  for  any  function  will 
neglect  to  perform  its  duty  and  abdicate  its 
trust  ?  Such  a  presumption  would  go  against 
all  governments  in  all  modes.  But,  in  truth, 
this  dread  of  penury  of  supply  from  a  free 
assembly  has  no  foundation  in  nature;  for 
first,  observe  that,  besides  the  desire  which  all 
men  have  naturally  of  supporting  the  honor  of 
their  own  government,  that  sense  of  dignity 
and  that  security  to  property  which  ever  at- 
tends freedom  has  a  tendency  to  increase  the 
stock  of  the  free  community.  Most  may  be 
taken  where  most  is  accumulated.  And  what 
is  the  soil  or  climate  where  experience  has  not 
uniformly  proved  that  the  voluntary  flow  of 
heaped-up  plenty,  bursting  from  the  weight  of 
its  own  rich  luxuriance,  has  ever  run  with  a 
more  copious  stream  of  revenue  than  could  be 
squeezed  from  the  dry  husks  of  oppressed 
indigence  by  the  straining  of  all  the  politic 
machinery  in  the  world  ? 

Next,  we  know  that  parties  must  ever  exist 
in  a  free  country.  We  know,  too,  that  the 
emulations  of  such  parties  —  their  contradic- 
tions, their  reciprocal  necessities,  their  hopes, 

255 


®n  ConcfKatfon  witb  Bmcrica 

and  their  fears  —  must  send  them  all  in  their 
turns  to  him  that  holds  the  balance  of  the 
State.  The  parties  are  the  gamesters :  but 
Government  keeps  the  table,  and  is  sure  to  be 
the  winner  in  the  end.  When  the  game  is 
played,  I  really  think  it  is  more  to  be  feared 
that  the  people  will  be  exhausted,  than  that 
government  will  not  be  supplied;  whereas, 
whatever  is  got  by  acts  of  absolute  power  ill 
obeyed,  because  odious,  or  by  contracts  ill 
kept,  because  constrained,  will  be  narrow, 
feeble,  uncertain,  and  precarious. 

* '  Ease  would  retract 
Vows  made  in  pain,  as  violent  and  void." 

I,  for  one,  protest  against  compounding  our 
demands.  I  declare  against  compounding, 
for  a  poor  limited  sum,  the  immense,  ever- 
growing, eternal  debt  which  is  due  to  generous 
government  from  protected  freedom.  And  so 
may  I  speed  in  the  great  object  I  propose  to 
you,  as  I  think  it  would  not  only  be  an  act  of 
injustice,  but  would  be  the  worst  economy  in 
the  world,  to  compel  the  Colonies  to  a  sum 
certain,  either  in  the  way  of  ransom  or  in  the 
way  of  compulsory  compact. 

But  to  clear  up  my  ideas  on  this  subject:  a 
revenue  from  America  transmitted  hither  —  do 

?§6 


©n  ConcUlatfon  wftb  Bmerfca 

not  delude  yourselves  —  you  never  can  receive 
it;  no,  not  a  shilling.  We  have  experience 
that  from  remote  countries  it  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected. If,  when  you  attempted  to  extract 
revenue  from  Bengal,  you  were  obliged  to 
return  in  loan  what  you  had  taken  in  im- 
position, what  can  you  expect  from  North 
America  ?  For  certainly,  if  ever  there  was  a 
country  qualified  to  produce  wealth,  it  is  India; 
or  an  institution  fit  for  the  transmission,  it  is 
the  East  India  Company.  America  has  none 
of  these  aptitudes.  If  America  gives  you 
taxable  objects  on  which  you  lay  your  duties 
here,  and  gives  you,  at  the  same  time,  a  sur- 
plus by  a  foreign  sale  of  her  commodities  to 
pay  the  duties  on  these  objects  which  you  tax 
at  home,  she  has  performed  her  part  to  the 
British  revenue.  But  with  regard  to  her  own 
internal  establishments,  she  may,  I  doubt  not 
she  will,  contribute  in  moderation.  I  say  in 
moderation,  for  she  ought  not  to  be  permitted 
to  exhaust  herself.  She  ought  to  be  reserved 
to  a  war,  the  weight  of  which,  with  the  enemies 
that  we  are  most  likely  to  have,  must  be  con- 
siderable in  her  quarter  of  the  globe.  There 
she  may  serve  you,  and  serve  you  essentially. 
For  that  service  —  for  all  service,  whether 
of  revenue,  trade,  or  empire  —  my  trust  is  in 
357 


©n  Conciliatton  wttb  Bmetica 

her  interest  in  the  British  Constitution.  My 
hold  of  the  Colonies  is  in  the  close  affection 
which  grows  from  common  names,  from 
kindred  blood,  from  similar  privileges,  and 
equal  protection.  These  are  ties  which,  though 
light  as  air,  are  as  strong  as  links  of  iron. 
Let  the  colonists  always  keep  the  idea  of  their 
civil  rights  associated  with  your  government, 
—  they  will  cling  and  grapple  to  you,  and  no 
force  under  heaven  will  be  of  power  to  tear  them 
from  their  allegiance.  But  let  it  be  once  un- 
derstood that  your  government  may  be  one 
thing,  and  their  privileges  another,  that  these 
two  things  may  exist  without  any  mutual 
relation,  the  cement  is  gone  —  the  cohesion  is 
loosened  —  and  everything  hastens  to  decay 
and  dissolution.  As  long  as  you  have  the 
wisdom  to  keep  the  sovereign  authority  of 
this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of  liberty,  the 
sacred  temple  consecrated  to  our  common 
faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons  of 
England  worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their 
faces  towards  you.  The  more  they  multiply, 
the  more  friends  you  will  have;  the  more 
ardently  they  love  liberty,  the  more  perfect 
will  be  their  obedience.  Slavery  they  can 
have  anywhere  —  it  is  a  weed  that  grows  in 
every  soil.     They  may  have  it   from  Spain; 

258 


©n  Conctllatfon  wltb  America 

they  may  have  it  from  Prussia.  But,  until 
you  become  lost  to  all  feeling  of  your  true 
interest  and  your  natural  dignity,  freedom  they 
can  have  from  none  but  you.  This  is  the 
commodity  of  price  of  which  you  have  the 
monopoly.  This  is  the  true  Act  of  Navigation 
which  binds  to  you  the  commerce  of  the 
Colonies,  and  through  them  secures  to  you 
the  wealth  of  the  world.  Deny  them  this 
participation  of  freedom,  and  you  break  that 
sole  bond  which  originally  made,  and  must 
still  preserve,  the  unity  of  the  empire.  Do  not 
entertain  so  weak  an  imagination  as  that  your 
registers  and  your  bonds,  your  affidavits  and 
your  sufferances,  your  cockets  ^^  and  your 
clearances,  are  what  form  the  great  secu- 
rities of  your  commerce.  Do  not  dream  that 
your  letters  of  office,  and  your  instructions, 
and  your  suspending  clauses  are  the  things 
that  hold  together  the  great  contexture  of  the 
mysterious  whole.  These  things  do  not  make 
your  government.  Dead  instruments,  passive 
tools  as  they  are,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English 
communion  that  gives  all  their  life  and  efficacy 
to  them.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution which,  infused  through  the  mighty 
mass,  pervades,  feeds,  unites,  invigorates,  vivi- 

30.  A  document  bearing  the  seal  of  the  custom-house, 
259 


©n  Conciliation  witb  Bmerica 

fies,  every  part  of  the  empire,  even  down  to 
the  minutest  member. 

Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  every- 
thing for  us  here  in  England  ?  Do  you 
imagine,  then,  that  it  is  the  Land  Tax  Act 
which  raises  your  revenue  ?  that  it  is  the 
annual  vote  in  the  committee  of  supply  which 
gives  you  your  army  ?  or  that  it  is  the  mutiny 
bill  which  inspires  it  with  bravery  and  dis- 
cipline ?  No  !  surely  no  !  It  is  the  love 
of  the  people;  it  is  their  attachment  to  their 
government,  from  the  sense  of  the  deep  stake 
they  have  in  such  a  glorious  institution,  which 
gives  you  your  army  and  your  navy,  and 
infuses  into  both  that  liberal  obedience  with- 
out which  your  army  would  be  a  base  rabble, 
and  your  navy  nothing  but  rotten  timber. 

All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound 
wild  and  chimerical  to  the  profane  herd  of 
those  vulgar  and  mechanical  politicians  who 
have  no  place  among  us;  a  sort  of  people  who 
think  that  nothing  exists  but  what  is  gross  and 
material,  and  who,  therefore,  far  from  being 
qualified  to  be  directors  of  the  great  movement 
of  empire,  are  not  fit  to  turn  a  wheel  in  the 
machine.  But  to  men  truly  initiated  and 
rightly  taught,  these  rulings  and  master  prin- 
ciples which,  in  the  opinion  of  such  men  as  I 

260 


®n  Conciliation  wltb  America 

have  mentioned,  have  no  substantial  exist- 
ence, are  in  truth  everything,  and  all  in  all. 
Magnanimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the 
truest  wisdom;  and  a  great  empire  and  little 
minds  go  ill  together.  If  we  are  conscious 
of  our  station,  and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill  our 
places  as  becomes  our  situation  and  ourselves, 
we  ought  to  auspicate  all  our  public  proceed- 
ings on  America  with  the  old  warning  of  the 
church,  Stirsum  cor  da!  ^^  We  ought  to  elevate 
our  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that  trust  to 
which  the  order  of  Providence  has  called  us. 
By  adverting  to  the  dignity  of  this  high  calling 
our  ancestors  have  turned  a  savage  wilderness 
into  a  glorious  empire,  and  have  made  the  most 
extensive  and  the  only  honorable  conquests — 
not  by  destroying,  but  by  promoting  the  wealth, 
the  number,  the  happiness,  of  the  human 
race.  Let  us  get  an  American  revenue  as  we 
have  got  an  American  empire.  English  privi- 
leges have  made  it  all  that  it  is;  English  privi- 
leges alone  will  make  it  all  it  can  be. 

In  full  confidence  of  this  unalterable  truth, 
I  now,  quod  felix  faustiimque  sit,^^  lay  the 
first  stone  of  the  Temple  of  Peace;  and  I 
move  you  — 

31.  Lift  up  your  hearts  —  the  Roman  Catholic  call  to  prayer. 

32,  May  it  be  happy  and  of  good  omen. 

261 


©n  ConctUatlon  vvltb  Hmcrlca 

"That  the  Colonies  and  Plantations  of 
Great  Britain  in  North  America,  consisting  of 
fourteen  separate  governments,  and  contain- 
ing two  millions  and  upwards  of  free  inhabit- 
ants, have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege  of 
electing  and  sending  any  Knights  and  Bur- 
gesses, or  others,  to  represent  them  in  the 
High  Court  of  Parliament." 


262 


Stubi?  of  Qn  Conciliation  witb 
america 


[^^p^r 

lis  i 

^■w^H^" 

■p^^^ 

■ip^ji 

StuMcs 

This  oration  is  one  of  the  finest  examples  of 
close  and  sustained  logical  argument  that  the 
English  language  offers  us  and  it  should  be  care- 
fully studied.  First  with  the  idea  of  mastering 
its  thought:  Read  it  through  from  beginning  to 
end  rapidly,  and  with  the  idea  of  gaining  a  com- 
prehensive knowledge  of  it  in  its  entirety.  Then 
go  over  it  again  more  carefully,  satisfying 
yourself  that  you  have  mastered  the  meaning  of 
each  sentence  and  that  the  chief  points  of  the 
argument  are  fixed  in  your  mind.  Examine  care- 
fully the  notes  whenever  you  need  their  assistance, 
remembering  that  the  dictionary  is  an  indispen- 
sable adjunct  to  your  work  in  literature.  The 
notes  are  meant  to  assist  you  in  finding  what  is 
not  readily  accessible  to  the  ordinary  reader. 

To  assist  in  the  second  reading,  or  in  a  third  if 
it  is  necessary  to  read  again,  consult  frequently 
the  following  outline,  which  will  help  to  clarify  the 
trend  of  thought. 

Jntroduciion.  Opens  the  subject  and  clears  the 
way  by  stating  the  two  leading  questions 
which  the  orator  thinks  should  be  decided  : 

265 


studied 

1.  Ought  concessions  to  be  made  ? 

2.  What  should  the  concessions  be  ? 
Argument.     This  presents 

I.  The  condition  of  the  colonists. 

1.  The  number  of  the  colonists. 

(a)  Present,  very  large. 

(b)  Growing  rapidly. 

2.  Their  commerce. 

(a)  Extensive. 

(b)  Phenomenal  growth. 

3.  Their  agriculture — The  New  World  feeds 

the  Old. 

4.  Fisheries — Their  vessels  are  everywhere. 

(Possibly  more  closely  connected  with  a  suc- 
ceeding portion  of  the  argument  is  the  next  sec- 
tion which  offers  to  the  use  of  force  the  objections 
that  it  is  but  temporary  in  its  action,  it  is  uncer- 
tain in  its  effect,  it  impairs  the  object  sought,  and 
experience  has  not  justified  it.) 

II.  The  character  of  the  colonists:      A  love  of 

freedom  is  the  predominating  feature 
which  marks  and  distinguishes  them. 
Causes : 

1.  Birth — descendants  of  Englishmen  and  so 

especially  sensitive  to  taxation. 

2.  Form  of  government — in  a  certain  sense 

representative. 

3.  Religion  in  northern    colonies  —  Protes- 

tant. 

266 


StuOics 

4.  Customs  in  the  southern  colonies  —  where 

slaves  are  held  those  who  are  free  are 
especially  proud  and  jealous  of  their 
freedom. 

5.  Education  —  Particularly    the    study    of 

law. 

6.  Distance  from  the  mother  country  —  In 

large  bodies  the    circulation   must   be 
less  vigorous  in  the  extremities. 
III.   Question  :     What  shall  be  done  ? 

(Here  follows  further  explanation  with  allusions 
to  pernicious  experiments  that  have  been  made.) 

There  are  three  ways  of  proceeding: 
I.   To   change    the    spirit   by    removing   the 
cause.     Plans  that  have  been  proposed 
and  their  difficulties: 

(a)  Make    no    further   grants    of    land. 

This  is  neither  prudent  nor  practi- 
cable because 
(i)  There    are   plenty    of   unsettled 

lands  in  private  hands. 
(2)   People  would  occupy  lands  with- 
out grants. 

(b)  Impoverish  the  colonies — especially 

arrest    their    marine    enterprises. 
But 
(i)   Discontent   will    increase    with 

misery. 
(2)  They   cannot  falsify  their  pedi- 
gree. 

267 


StuDtes 

(c)  Change  tlieir  religion,  education,  and 

form  of  government.     To  accom- 
plish this 
(i)  The  army  would  be  ineffectual 
and  chargeable  to  us. 

(d)  Enfranchise  the  slaves.     But 

(i)  Americans     may      arm     servile 
hands. 

(2)  May  be  suspicious  of  a  nation 

that  sanctions  the  slave  traf- 
fic. 

(3)  The  ocean  remains  a  barrier. 

2.  To  prosecute  the  spirit  as  criminal.     But 

(a)  To  prosecute  an  empire  is  impos- 

sible. Subordinate  parts  must 
have  local  privileges  and  immu- 
nities—  imprudent  to  insist  that 
if  a  single  privilege  is  pleaded, 
authority  is  denied. 

(b)  The  judge  cannot  act  impartially 

in  a  case  when  he  is  one  of  the 
parties. 

(c)  Menaces  cannot  abate  disorder. 

3.  To   comply  with  the  American  spirit  as 

necessary.     This  means 

(a)   Grant  them   the  boon    they    ask, 

representation  in  the  Parliament 

that  taxes  them. 

(The  right  of  taxation  is  not  in,- 
volved  in  this  argument.) 


StuMes 

(b)  Admit  the  people  of  our  colonies  into 
an  interest  in  the  constitution. 
Reasons  : 

(i)   No    danger  of  extension  of  de- 
mands. 
(2)  Favorable  precedents. 

(a)   Ireland    responded    cheer- 
fully in  grants,  but  would 
not  submit  to  taxation. 
(3)  Wales     was     pacified      by 
grants    of    constitutional 
liberties, 
(r)    Chester  demonstrated    that 
freedom   is   the  cure  for 
anarchy. 
{d)   Dover,    a  fourth  example. 
(c)   Mark  the  legal  competency   of    the 
colonial  assemblies. 

(Then  follow  in  detail  the  six  resolutions  and 
their  corollaries  by  which  Burke  hopes  to  bring 
about  conciliation  with  the  colonies.  These  res- 
olutions having  been  discussed  each  by  itself, 
he  proceeds  to  dispose  of  some  objections  that 
had  been  raised  to  his  plan,  he  examines  and  re- 
futes the  plan  proposed  by  Lord  North,  compares 
it  with  his  own  plan. ) 
Conclusion.     A  strong  plea  for  magnanimity. 


The   difficult    thing   is    to    follow   a   course    of 
reasoning  and  to  determine  whether  it  is  wholly 

269 


StuOfcs 

logical;  accordingly,  after  the  argument  in  this 
oration  has  been  carefully  studied  you  should  test 
each  step  to  see  if  it  meets  your  unprejudiced  ap- 
proval. If  you  had  been  a  member  of  Parliament 
at  the  time  would  you  have  decided  to  vote  with 
Burke  for  conciliation  with  America?  If  so, 
would  you  have  done  it  because  you  were  moved 
by  his  argument  or  because  you  were  impressed 
by  his  own  earnestness  and  sympathy  with  the 
colonists  ? 

When  the  thought  is  fully  your  own,  the  whole 
oration  should  be  read  again  and  the  parts  com- 
pared in  order  to  ascertain  their  relative  merits. 
In  so  doing  consider  the  following  points : 

I.  Is  the  language  clear  so  that  you  are  not 
troubled  by  involved  sentences  and  expressions  of 
doubtful  meaning?  Do  you  find  some  passages 
more  lucid  than  others? 

II.  Would  his  ideas  make  an  impression  upon 
the  minds  of  his  hearers  ?  Are  they  forcibly  ex- 
pressed? Has  he  given  them  greater  force  by 
repetition  and  by  varied  expression?  Does  his 
oratory  ever  rise  to  a  point  where  you  would  think 
his  own  feelings  were  involved  ?  Can  you  imagine 
that  he  was  ever  deeply  stirred  by  his  interest  in 
his  subject  ?  Did  he  ever  make  any  direct  appeal 
to  the  sympathies  of  his  hearers  ? 

III.  Do  you  find  any  evidences  of  artistic  fin- 
ish ?  Has  he  tried  to  make  his  sentences  sonorous 
and  charming  to  the  ear  ?     Does  he  draw  on  his 

270 


Stu&fes 

previous  study  for  figures  to  beautify  his  sen- 
tences ?  Which  characteristic  prevails,  clearness, 
force,  or  beauty  ? 

Neither  of  the  great  orations  you  have  just 
studied  has  been  mastered  until  you  are  able  to 
see  the  course  of  argument  from  beginning  to  end, 
until  you  have  carefully  weighed  the  proofs  by 
which  each  step  in  the  argument  is  established. 
You  must  not  be  caught  by  the  fervid  eloquence, 
the  beauty  of  diction  or  the  apparent  logical  se- 
quence of  ideas.  You  must  be  on  guard  to  detect  • 
fallacies  in  argument,  conclusions  that  do  not  fol- 
low from  the  premises  laid  down,  generalizations 
that  should  not  be  made  from  facts  cited.  When 
Burke  cites  the  cases  of  Ireland,  Wales,  Chester, 
and  Durham,  does  he  prove  his  point?  Could 
the  revulsion  in  the  condition  of  these  provinces 
have  been  attributed  to  any  other  cause  ? 

When  Burke  is  speaking  of  the  commerce  of 
the  colonies  he  refers  to  the  fact  that  "this  ground 
*  *  *  has  been  trod  *  *  *  by  a  distinguished  person 
at  your  bar,"  a  gentleman  whom  he  ranks  as  **  one 
of  the  first  literary  characters  of  his  age."  This 
man  was  Richard  Glover,  a  poet  (17 12-1785),  who 
in  1 761  was  a  member  of  Parliament  and  highly 
regarded  for  his  scholarship,  especially  in  Greek. 
But  his  was  the  age  of  Goldsmith,  of  Gibbon,  of 
Adam  Smith,  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  Boswell.  To 
rank  Glover  as  one  of  the  first  literary  men  of 
the  time  is  grave  exaggeration,  for  he  possessed  no 
271 


StuMes 

power  to  make  himself  remembered.  Find  the 
passage  and  determine  why  Burke  should  so  rate 
him.  Was  it  because  he  really  esteemed  him  so 
highly,  was  it  to  give  increased  value  to  any  state- 
ments he  might  quote  from  Glover,  or  was  he 
speaking  ironically  ?  Might  such  exaggerations 
tend  to  give  too  much  weight  to  argument  and 
carry  conviction  where  it  was  not  justified? 

Comparing  his  speech  with  that  of  Webster  in  re- 
ply to  Hayne,  which  do  you  think  excels  in  logic  ? 
Which  in  clearness,  in  force,  in  beauty  ?  Do  you 
find  in  Burke  such  a  fervid  climax  as  that  with 
which  Webster  closed  his  reply  to  Hayne?  Do 
you  find  in  either  oration  bright  aphorisms,  wise 
conclusions  or  moral  reflections  of  a  general  na- 
ture which  might  be  taken  from  their  context  and 
still  be  forcible  and  beautiful  ?  From  which  ora- 
tion can  you  select  the  more  ?  As  you  look  back 
over  the  two,  which  seems  to  you  the  better  one, 
which  would  you  prefer  to  have  heard  ?  If  you 
had  heard  both,  which  would  have  pleased  you 
the  more,  which  would  have  been  more  stirring  to 
your  feelings,  which  the  more  convincing  to  your 
intellect  ? 


272 


flDi0cellaneou0 


Supplementary  1Reat)ings 


The  two  orations  given  are  political  in  their  na- 
ture and  there  are  many  others  that  are  interesting 
reading.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  of  New  York  pub- 
lish a  series  of  four  small  volumes  called  American 
Orations  in  which  the  speeches  are  arranged  in 
chronological  order  so  that  a  student  may  follow 
the  history  of  his  country  in  the  orations  its  fa- 
mous men  have  delivered.  The  first  volume  gives 
those  of  the  colonial  period  and  during  the  rise  of 
the  national  spirit,  the  second  and  third  relate  to 
the  antislavery  struggle  and  secession,  the  fourth 
to  the  Civil  war,  reconstruction,  free  trade,  and 
civil  service  reform. 

The  orations  of  Wendell  Phillips  are  published 
in  two  rather  larger  volumes  by  Lee  &  Shepard  of 
Boston.  In  the  First  Series  are  his  antislavery 
speeches  and  among  others  in  the  Second  Series 
are  The  Lost  Arts  and  The  Scholar  in  a  Republic, 
two  of  the  more  famous. 

A  very  fine  collection  is  that  of  the  orations  of 
George  William  Curtis,  edited  by  Charles  Eliot 
Norton  and  published  in  three  large  volumes  by 
Harper  &  Brothers  of  New  York. 

As  a  companion  to  Atnerican  Orations,  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons  publish  British  Orations,  a  collec- 

375 


Supplementary  IReaOlnga 

tion  of  the  most  famous  political  speeches  of 
English  orators.  In  an  introduction  to  this  set, 
Charles  Kendall  Adams  says  of  the  men  whose 
speeches  are  given,  <' Eliot  and  Pym  formulated 
the  grievances  against  absolutism,  a  contemplation 
of  which  led  to  the  revolution  that  established 
Anglican  liberty  on  its  present  basis.  Chatham, 
Mansfield,  and  Burke  elaborated  the  principles 
which  on  the  one  hand  drove  the  American  colo- 
nies into  independence  and  on  the  other  enabled 
their  independence  to  be  won  and  secured." 


276 


IReview  diuestfons 


1.  Compare  Webster  and  Burke  in  regard  to 
their  political  positions  and  influence. 

2.  Which  of  the  two  speaks  in  the  more  figura- 
tive language  ?  Which  is  the  easier  to  follow  in 
his  line  of  argument?  Which  the  more  entertain- 
ing to  read  ? 

3.  Compare  the  final  paragraphs  of  The  Great 
Stone  Face,  Lamb's  Dream  Children,  Emerson's 
Self- Reliance,  and  Webster's  Reply  to  Hayne. 

4.  Does  the  conclusion  in  all  of  these  subserve 
the  same  purpose  ?  Is  it  in  any  case  a  direct  ap- 
peal to  the  emotions  ? 

5.  In  what  respect  should  the  study  of  an 
oration  differ  from  the  study  of  an  essay? 

6.  Does  the  presence  of  such  a  person  as  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley  add  to  the  interest  of  the  es- 
says in  which  he  appears  ?  If  so,  in  what  way 
and  for  what  reason? 

7.  Which  is  the  more  readable,  Self-Reliance 
or  the  Reply  to  Hayne?     Why? 

8.  Find  expository  passages  in  the  fiction  of 
the  first  two  Parts  of  this  course. 

9.  Find  descriptive  prose  in  the  two  orations. 
10.   Compare  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address  with 

Bacon's  Nature  in  Men.     Can  you  see  any  points 
of   similarity  ?     What  difference  do  you  notice  ? 

277 


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